Walking Wounded
by theherocomplex
Summary: One month after April's fall, Donnie struggles to find any clue about what they're facing. The truth is much older - and has much sharper teeth - than he could have guessed. (The third installment of the GaVG 'verse, sequel to "Slant, Slip, Slope")
1. Interlude: Homecoming

**A/N:** This Interlude chapter, and the one following, take place two weeks after the events of _Slant, Slip, Slope_, and bridge the time between _Slant_ and the full _Walking Wounded _arc.

* * *

"I can walk," April says, too loudly, as Casey rolls her past the nurses' station. "I don't need a wheelchair."

"Sure, honey," says the most long-suffering nurse in the history of nurses. "Sure." Casey tips her a wink and a grin over April's head, and the nurse smiles back. He keeps pushing April down the hall, trying not to laugh as people duck into empty rooms to get away from the furious redhead.

"They're just tryin' to help, Ape," he says, on purpose, and all her anger gets focused on him instead of innocent bystanders. She rolls her wheelchair back onto his foot.

"Don't call me that," she snaps.

April glowers the whole trip down the hallway, into the elevator, and into the parking lot. It's her death-glower, the one that even makes Splinter take a step or two back, but Casey's dealt with it for years. In fact, he was the reason why the death-glower came into being. Now, ten years on, it barely fazes him.

"Okay, up you go," he says, pulling her out of the wheelchair with an arm around her waist. "Easy, easy."

"Casey, come on, _move it_, I just want to get home," April bites out, pale and sweating after just two steps. An orderly whisks the wheelchair away, with a harried look at April, but she's too focused on keeping her balance to notice. Casey waits until she gives up and leans on him, and holds her steady as her legs shake.

"It's okay," he says. "It's okay, April. We're goin' home."

She nods, chewing her lip, and lets him lead her toward the van. It's maybe thirty feet to where his van is parked, but he's already wishing April hadn't bitched so much about the wheelchair. She sags against his side, breathing shallow and weak, and he can't even carry her because he might pull out bandages or stitches.

_Goddammit, Ape,_ he thinks when she stumbles, and immediately hates himself for the frustration prickling the back of his neck. She's Irish-stubborn, same as him, but he'd have stuck with the wheelchair.

Of course, he's not the one who got kicked off a roof and nearly bled out, so he can't really say what he'd do, can he?

"Almost there," he says. "Almost home."

He parked his van in a shaded corner of the lot, where the asphalt is mainly worn to gravel and most of the ice is melted. It's a walk, and a slow, dark one in the twilight; April's biting back groans by the time they make it, but he had a good reason for parking so far away. When the door opens and two long green arms reach out for her, the look on April's face is worth every glare, every glower.

Casey eases her into Mikey's waiting arms, and shuts the door as the brothers curl around her. After he climbs into the driver's seat, Casey checks the review mirror: Leo's put his back to the door, Raph's lifted April's legs onto his own, and Mikey has settled April's head against his chest.

It's weird to watch from the outside, because none of them are particularly cuddly (except Mikey, who will cling to anything warm and soft), but Casey understands it: this is their way - his way too, because he's part of it - of reasserting normalcy. Well, what passes for it in their world. April's back, April's safe. They've done this for Mikey, for Raph, even Casey's gotten his turn.

Only one brother is missing, and Casey watches April's mouth twist downward as she searches the corners of the van.

_Donnie, you jerkwad,_ Casey thinks, already exhausted by the thought of April's quiet disappointment and Donnie's ongoing erosion, and revs the engine. He catches Raph's gaze and they shrug in unison - they'll talk on patrol. For now, he just wants to get April home.

Dealing with Donnie - that can wait.

"Anyone want some music?" he yells, knowing no one except Raph's paying attention to him. "Awesome, great, thanks."

He flicks on the CD player - someday he'll find the iPod April gave him - and Oasis pours out, loud and brash. Another turn of his wrist sends the volume sky-high to chase away Donnie's heavy absence, and he sings along as he drives. Whenever he glances back, April's watching him, and smiling.

_Thank you, _she mouths, and Casey waggles his eyebrows until she rolls her eyes, still smiling.

Casey spends the rest of the drive singing at the top of his lungs, and planning what he's going to say to Donnie the next time he sees him. When that'll be is anyone's guess, because Donnie's nowhere to be found more often than not these days.

_Hope he's got a good reason for not showin'._

He ends up sending a text that says _not cool, dude_, and he's not surprised at all when Donnie doesn't reply.

* * *

Donnie watches the van disappear down the street, hidden under the same water tower he huddled beneath almost two weeks ago. Once it's out of sight, aimed for the warmth of April's apartment, he slips out into the night.

He's going back to the docks. Something's there, some clue he missed, and he's not going home till he finds it.

The storm is getting closer. He can't afford to fail again.


	2. Interlude: Their Hungry Thirsty Roots

Karai waits in a room with no windows. She thinks, she remembers.

And oh, how she regrets.

Once upon a time (seven years ago), Karai had been feared. Not loved - whatever the Shredder felt for her, it was not love, just the affection a warrior held for a particularly useful weapon - but feared. Respected too, because she was _effective_.

Fear made up the lion's share of what people felt for her, and Karai loved it. Fear - other people's, not hers - made her inventive. She knew nothing about how to build a song, note upon note, but she could play someone's fear like a shamisen.

_I used to make music,_ she thinks, staring at her hands. She longs for her katana, distantly, like a landlocked sailor for the sea. _I used to dance, and play. I laughed, once. _

Almost two thousand days have passed since she laughed. Her face is scraped clean of makeup, and her hair hangs in a long braid down her back. The only things unchanged are the long, sleek lines of her body, compact muscle and implied threat. She may not have her katana, but she has been kept ready.

She _is _the katana now, resting in silk and darkness until it is required.

The door to her room opens.

Karai lifts her head.

"The storm begins," says a man's voice, flavorless as chaff. "Come with me."

* * *

She is brought through wide hallways, with ceilings so high she can barely glimpse their graceful curves, and rooms with doors she has to crawl through, the walls pressed in tight against her. In the end, she arrives in a room just like the one she left.

_Maybe it is the same room, _she muses, like she always does. _Maybe I'm just being dragged in circles. _

The man — faceless and nameless, like he always is — disappears with a slight smell of charcoal. Karai straightens and waits, her eyes focused on a vague point in the distance. The voice will speak soon, and she wants to treasure her last few moments of silence.

When it speaks, the voice invades her body; her teeth chatter against each other, and her bladder fills to the point of pain. She clenches her jaw, trying to breathe through her nose — _remember your training, you were a kunoichi once, you can withstand this_ — but then the voice is in her lungs and nose, and she has to open her mouth to let it out, or she will choke.

_Karai._ _Oh my lovely, my dear one, thank you for coming. _

"Did I have a choice?" she asks, gasping. Tears bead at the corners of her eyes. It takes everything she has not to run. Running never gets her anywhere. She would be caught before she took two steps. Like always.

_You did, _says the voice, and the hint of a smile under the words makes Karai's skin itch and burn. _Seven years ago, my child. And you chose this. _

Karai closes her eyes. "I didn't," she hisses, one last hot flash of defiance darting across her mind before the voice smothers it, like oil, like fog.

_Hush. _The voice is full of kindly reproach, but the weight in her skull forces Karai to her knees, panting, clawing at the floor. _You waste time, and we have so little to spare._

The pressure lifts long enough for Karai to shove herself upright. "What do you want me to do?" she asks, hating herself with every word. Surrender is anathema; surrender is a little death. But better the little death than what the speaker will do to her if she keeps trying to resist.

The last of her honor died years ago.

_Your old friends — the freaks, I think you call them? They attacked one of my supply drops two weeks ago. Do you remember?_

Of course Karai remembers. The survivors limped back, bloody and torn to a man, whining and pleading. Leonardo and his brothers had discovered some new tricks in the years since she left New York, it seemed. The smugglers had no chance against the freaks, and they deserved mercy — so they said.

_Mercy? _The voice had laughed, and laughed, until Karai screamed her throat bloody. _Mercy, for the expendable? My protections worked; the girl will not be able to guide them. _

Then, it made Karai watch while it ate.

Karai wipes the last tears away with the back of her hand. She feels nothing for the dead smugglers. They were pawns, nothing more, designed for one purpose: sacrifice. Even Rahzar, who thought himself a knight — maybe even a bishop, _stupid dog_ — is dead.

She envies Rahzar. He had his freedom; he chose this service, for a chance at revenge, to feel blood in his fists. His hate for the brothers is second only to hers, and it killed him.

Lucky dog.

If it would free her, Karai would put aside her hate, let it wash away to the sea. For the chance to be rid of the voice, she would bend her neck to Leonardo and beg him to kill her. _Spill my blood, freak, it's what you've wanted all these years. So do it, end it, kill me and leave me here for the crows. It's all I want. _

A gentle bubble of laughter interrupts her thoughts.

_Is that really what you want, my lovely Karai? _A vague white shape begins to coalesce at the edge of her vision. _Is it, Karai? You told me all you ever wanted was to be free of the Shredder. And have I not given you that?_

The shape approaches, its legs short and its belly hanging low to the ground. Karai tries to cringe away, but the voice holds her fast. Her muscles will not obey her, no matter how hard she wills them to _move._

"This wasn't what I wanted," she spits out, before the voice slams her jaw closed on the tip of her tongue. The taste of blood fills her mouth, and its scent fills her nose.

_You said anything. Anything to be free of him. Didn't you? _

To Karai's horror, her head nods, without any input from her brain or nervous system. The voice chuckles.

_You did, you did. Why are you so surprised that I took you at your word? _The shape slips into focus: a massive white boar, its tusks as long as her forearm, its eyes pink and watery and utterly mad.

_You didn't tell me you would take my _heart, Karai screams inside her skull. _My heart, you cut open my chest and you stole my _heart_, you bastard —_

"Oh, Karai," sighs the White Boar. Karai twitches, her horror at the Boar's mouth forming words overpowering its control for a brief, sweet second. Before she can take advantage of her release, the Boar bellows, the sound filling the room until all air is pushed out and Karai chokes on her empty throat. She tumbles back to her knees, ears ringing, and barely notices when her head hits the floor.

The pressure is lifted by degrees. Karai realizes she can breathe again, and pushes herself up slowly.

At first, her eyes refuse to focus on the Boar. All she can see is white mist, and a suggestion of bones, so she turns her head away and tries to ease the shaking in her muscles.

"Karai," says the voice. "Karai, look at me."

"No," Karai moans, hot shame flooding her as she hears the quaver in her voice. No one would mistake her refusal for defiance. "I won't."

Cool, hard fingers hook under her chin and force her head up. She keeps her eyes closed as long as she can, but a breath washes over her face and she cannot resist.

A woman in white smiles down at her, all smiles and gentle eyes. She is neither old nor young, her skin smooth as glass, her mouth mobile as a girl's.

She is beautiful, the twin of the man who came to Karai seven years ago and said _What do you want, Karai?_

Karai's first reply had been _my mother_.

Then, she said, _to be free of the Shredder, _and damned herself to this — a half-life of dust and silent hours, waiting to be called into service.

"Are you ready, Karai?" says the White Boar. "New York awaits you." Its smile would delight children, and comfort the dying, but Karai's chest aches as she watches the Boar's smile spread.

It can be anything — father, mother, hero, lover — and that is its danger, its seduction. Karai took the bait, swallowed it whole, and only noticed the hook as it tore out her heart.

"What do you want me to do?" Karai asks again. There is nothing else she can say.

The White Boar smiles. "Open the way for me," it says, and draws its robes tight around its woman's body. "The brothers will fight." The joy in the Boar's smile slips away, and all that is left is hunger: insane, unending hunger. "Wear them down. Exhaust them. Prepare them for my offer." It strokes Karai's cheek, and licks its lips. "A whole city," it muses. "That will keep me fed for quite a while, don't you think?"

"Yes," whispers Karai. She presses her hand to her chest, searching for a heartbeat that has long been silent. "Yes, I do."

_Better them than me,_ she thinks, staring at her feet.

She does not have to look up to know the Boar is drooling.


	3. Walking Wounded: Part One

**A/N: This is the second major arc in the GaVG 'verse, after "Slant, Slip, Slope". In the internal chronology, it takes place about two weeks after "Interlude: Homecoming" and "Their Hungry Thirsty Roots".**

* * *

_March 5th. _

Hours and hours stuck in bed means April has plenty of time to imagine her return to the lair. She'd walk in under her own power, slowly but with confidence, and the brothers would cheer and hug her - carefully, because she'd still be healing - and then settle her into her usual spot on the couch. Mikey would sling a careless arm around her shoulders - but not _too_ careless, because he'd somehow manage to avoid hitting the bandage she still has to wear. Then Leo would take his place in front of the TV, in control of the remote, and Raph would grimace and shove a beanbag chair under her legs, ignoring her when she tries to thank him.

Everything would be the same. Comforting, loud, dim, and warm.

_No, it wouldn't_, she thinks, and puts her phone on the table next to her bed. As hard as she tries to imagine it, Donnie isn't there in her head. No matter how long she spends constructing the scene, he refuses to appear.

Twenty-four days of silence. Twenty-four days of staring at her phone until Casey threatens to take it away, and then immediately folds when she curls around herself, eyes closed.

_You're being pathetic, April_, whispers a cold voice in the back of her head. _He's made himself clear. Back off. _

_Fuck off, _April tells the voice, and shuts off the lamp next to her bed. Day Twenty-Five starts in less than an hour. Maybe things will change then.

* * *

Raph swings up to the roof, already in a foul mood because he forgot his jacket and hat _again_, a mood that plummets straight to rock-bottom when he sees Casey leaning against a vent shaft. Casey doesn't have his mask on, or his war paint, but the scowl etched into his features is visible from twenty feet away, even in the dark.

"Yo," Raph calls softly. "You doing okay, man?"

Casey glances up and shrugs, then looks back down at his feet. "'M good," he replies, and the lie's so obvious that Raph flinches.

He'd hoped they could put this off a little longer — until Mikey, or even better, Leo — fearless leader and all that — pulled their dicks out of their asses and _talked to Donnie_. They barely see Donnie these days, and when they do, he's so checked out that half the time he doesn't notice when someone calls him. He still trains, and he's always _on_, but he's never there.

Raph had meant to say something to Donnie that first morning. But letting Donnie sleep seemed like a good idea, and then getting breakfast into Donnie seemed more important than talking, and then Donnie disappeared.

And kept disappearing.

"You don't look so good," says Raph, trying to make it a joke, trying to buy a little more time, but that's all it takes for Casey to shove off the vent and stalk into his space.

He shoves Raph right in the plastron, not hard enough to do more than rock Raph back on his heels, but now the scowl is tight, unfamiliar rage.

"Your fuckin' brother —" Casey starts, and cuts himself off. He swallows hard and gives himself a shake. "Been almost two weeks, Raph," he says, in a low snarl. "Where is he?"

"How should I know?" Raph fists his hands at his sides and tries to remember to breathe. _A river over stone._ "I'm not Leo, I don't keep tabs on him."

"You said you'd talk to him!" Casey shouts. His voice clangs over the rooftops, but he doesn't notice. He stares at Raph, breathing hard.

_Oh shit,_ thinks Raph. "What happened?" he demands. "What the hell did April do?"

"She can't do _anything_, man." Casey backs up a few inches, and Raph hates himself for feeling grateful. It's easier to breathe this way, but it just adds to the general _you're a coward, you're a baby_ chorus running through his head.

He and his brothers don't have personalities. They have issues in the shape of personalities.

"She sits around and I have to listen to her just fuckin' sigh and it's _killin'_ me." Casey shudders with a sigh of his own, and Raph's guilt is a heavy, greasy knot in his stomach. Of course it's killing Casey. You do not fuck with April or Casey while the other one is still breathing.

"I texted him, I called him — you know April called him like, twenty times and he hasn't returned her calls? I thought he gave a shit!" Casey turns away, like he's so disgusted with one brother that he can't look at any of them. Raph reaches out for his arm, knowing he needs to salvage this but without an idea of _how_, but Casey steers away, out of his grasp.

"We gotta be in this _together_, Raph," Casey says to the skyline. "Donnie ain't pulling his weight. Right now, I don't think he's got my back in a fight."

"Dude," says Raph, offended on Donnie's behalf even as he's furious with him, because what Casey just said is _wrong_, Donnie would never leave someone out in the cold. He'd never leave someone alone when they needed help.

_No,_ thinks Raph. _He never _had. _Times have changed. _

"You gonna try and tell me different? Because I got an answer to that." Casey turns around. "Red hair, freckles, spent two weeks in the hospital —"

Now it's Raph's turn to push into Casey's space and shove him. "You think it was easy for _any_ of us? We were all there! Now we don't even know what's coming! We've been looking and we can't find anything!"

Casey slaps his hand away. "So it's okay to let Donnie dick around? You gotta get him in shape, Raph, or we ain't got a chance." He picks up his bat and points it at Raph. "You got tonight, man, or I find him, and we ain't gonna be havin' a conversation."

If the first rule of Casey Jones is _don't fuck with April_, then Raph's first rule is _don't fuck with family. _Same thing, in the end, but this is the first time he's found himself on the opposite side from Casey.

And it hurts.

Raph's not one for touching, not the way Mikey is, but he steels himself and reaches out, covering Casey's hand for one second. Casey startles, just a little, then lowers his bat, exhaling slowly.

"I don't like this," he says. "We shouldn't be fightin'. Not each other, anyways."

"You started it," Raph points out, not gently, but not unkindly either — the middle ground where he and Casey have always existed. "You won't have to worry about Donnie. I'll take care of it."

"Yeah?" Casey looks up. "You said that before. How do I know you're gonna pull through?"

"I said I'd take care of it," Raph says, and resolutely ignores how he wants to get back up in Casey's face and scream. "I mean it, Case."

Casey holds his eyes for a long time. Then he nods, and gives Raph the first smile either of them have made that night.

"All right, you're gonna take care of it. Call me if you need, you know, back-up." He slides his bat over his shoulder and winks. "But I'm gonna laugh my ass off if you actually do. I mean, if _Donnie_ can kick your ass —"

"Hilarious, Jones." Raph smiles back, the knot in his gut loosening. They're okay. "Maybe I should kick your ass for a warm-up."

"You got better things to do than that," says Casey.

"Yeah." Raph sighs. "Guess I do."

Casey stretches. Raph hears his back cracking as he rolls his neck. "I'm gonna go home. Don't feel like patrollin' tonight."

Raph nods, already feeling his muscles tighten under his shell. He doesn't even know where to start looking for Donnie.

Casey claps his shoulder and squeezes. "One night, man. I mean it. We gotta get the group back in one piece." He hesitates, squeezing again, and nods to the west. "Check the docks," he says, and turns away.

"The docks?" Raph frowns. He doesn't want to go anywhere near there, and he has no idea why Donnie would. Nothing could _force_ Donnie back there.

Casey shrugs. "I dunno, man. Just a hunch. But ain't that where Donnie always starts? The beginning?"

* * *

_Start at the beginning_, Donnie tells himself, for the twentieth night in a row. He looks out over the docks, breathes in, and lets himself drop to the street.

Without Leo there to counsel silence or critique his form, he lands with a graceless thud, and the shock moves up his legs to lodge in his hips, just like it has for the last three weeks. Every night, he comes to the docks, he breathes in the dirty air, and he searches.

In his head, he's mapped out the docks by quadrants, and then sub-divided the quadrants into quarters, then quarters again, on and on and on until he can look at the docks and see the lines dissecting them into tiny squares, six inches to a side. As he moves, methodical, sure, silent, he fills in each square with white in his head, and forgets about it. There isn't time for do-overs, so he has to get it right the first time.

The storm is coming. Under the stink of the water, he can smell it: electric and sour.

Time to move to the next square.

_Ah, now this is interesting. We have a tire track, probably from a truck, American model would be my guess, the wear is heavier on the left, so it carried unbalanced loads, which means it might have belonged to one of the smugglers who ran off before — _

April's voice swarms through him.

_"Oh my god what happened to me, Donnie, what happened?"_

Donnie stands up too fast, knees popping, and backs away, hands over his ears.

_She's not here. You got her there in time and she's fine, she's at home, she's safe. Now work!_

It takes forty-three seconds to get his breathing under control, and that's twenty-eight more than usual. He's getting sloppy. With a shake, Donnie banishes April's voice — all of April, her hands, her hair, the smell of her sweat, her chapped lips _her mouth was bloody there was blood on my chest from her mouth__ —_

A tiny prick of cold burns into his neck, and startles him into complete stillness. For a second, his mind stops working, and his hands move on their own power, pulling his bo from its straps and swinging it around to protect his front. His third lid drops over his eyes, just in time for Raph to step into view, the point of his sai still pressed to Donnie's neck.

"Dude," says his brother, in a flat voice, "you're a mess." He lifts his sai away slowly, his eyes locked on Donnie's face. "When was the last time you slept?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business," Donnie snaps. He forces his third lid back into place with a wince and turns away. Raph's appearance made him lose track of what square he was on, and it'll take time, too much precious time, to remember which one. "What do you want?"

Raph takes his time replying, stashing his sai in his belt and folding his arms. His mouth is a tight line, one corner tugged down in what might be a frown. Donnie shakes his head and sheaths his bo.

"Fine. I don't care. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm —" What, exactly, is he doing? He can't remember; his exhaustion hits him like a brick, and his mind is buried in fog. "I'm busy," he finishes, lamely, and turns away.

"The martyr act is getting really old," Raph says. "How long are you gonna keep it up? Another week, maybe two? Or until she stops trying to call you?"

Donnie spins around, teeth bared, but Raph faces him down without a quaver.

"I don't think it'll take much longer," he keeps going, easy and calm. "She's not stupid. Couple more days ought to do it. Then no more calls, no more texts, and then what? She doesn't come by the lair. She doesn't run with us anymore. She'll be gone."

Donnie just glares, fists clenched, snarling, but he doesn't let himself move. Getting him all riled, making him through the first punch, it's what Raph wants. Then the beatdown that follows is completely justified, at least in Raph's eyes, because Donnie started it. Raph just finished it.

He breathes in and tries to hold it, but his lungs ache and the air gusts out of him in a wheeze. Next, Raph will call him ugly, or a creep, or a loser, or any of the other countless insults Donnie's spent his life dodging. He's never quite managed it, but maybe tonight is the night he can turn away, and not give Raph the fight he so obviously wants.

"Is that what you want? April gone?"

Donnie blinks. _No_, he says silently. _Not at all. But I can't face her with nothing but myself._

Raph inhales, hesitating over his words, and Donnie braces himself. His brother is only careful with what he says when he wants it to hurt. It's Raph's way of twisting the knife when it's already buried under your ribs.

"Because you're doing a great job, Donnie. And it's the stupidest thing you've ever done."

Right on schedule. It's rich, really, how Raph calls him an idiot, when Donnie's brain is the one thing he's never had doubts about. Donnie relaxes, and kneels down to brush his fingers over the cold gravel. _Is this the square? No, two to the left, that's it. _

"It's not just about you two and whatever you've got going on. It's about all of us. Even _Casey_ sees that more than you do."

"Oh, so you're here to remind me of my responsibility to the family?" Donnie doesn't look up. He follows the tire tracks with his gaze, marking off squares in his head. _Nothing, nothing, nothing. _"I didn't see any of you acting too worried the first time I didn't go on patrol. Am I the only one who gets the guilt trip?"

Raph sighs, harsh in the back of his throat. Donnie can almost hear him rolling his eyes. "You're the only one who needs it," he says. "The rest of us are all working together."

Donnie shivers. Raph's voice hasn't changed, there's no anger in it, but he's touched a raw nerve. "The rest of you," he says to the ground. "You all do so well without me."

"Are you serious, Donnie?" Raph grabs his shoulder and yanks him up. "Am I actually hearing you say you think we're better without you?"

"Aren't you?" Donnie near-shouts. "All you've done is tell me that I'm weak — oh no, wait, the word you used most is _pussy_, I'm just a big _pussy_, aren't I? Right up until you need something _fixed_, and then it's _Donnie please can you just make this work, Donnie why is there a forcefield, Donnie what the hell is going on why don't you know_?" Anger flares in his head, his spine, his gut, and it warms him despite the chill breeze slipping between the buildings. He rounds on Raph, jabbing his finger into Raph's plastron. _"Fix it, Donnie, you big pussy, fix it!"_

He steps back, away from Raph's wide eyes, and throws his arm out behind him, sweeping over the docks. "So that's what I'm doing! I'm fixing it! I'm going to find out what's coming, and then —"

"Dude." Raph grabs his shoulder again, and doesn't let go when Donnie tries to pull away. "Dude, stop, just stop for a second — I'm sorry."

Donnie finally wrenches out of Raph's grip. "Maybe you're right." He sneers. "Maybe you'd all be better off, because I'm obviously doing a terrible job at fixing anything."

"Donnie, are you fucking _listening_ to what you're saying?" Raph reaches for him again, but Donnie slaps his hand away and retreats until he feels the wall at his back.

"Just tell me whatever it is you want me to do and leave. It'll get done. Just go away." He scrubs his mouth with the back of his hand, his anger a metallic tang on his tongue. He's so tired, tired of running, tired of fighting, tired of thinking, but most of all, he's tired of being asked for something under the guise of concern. This isn't about help, or Raph caring. It's a transaction, and any affection on Raph's part is payment for services rendered.

Why Raph is trying to pretend it's anything else is beyond Donnie. He'll fix whatever needs fixing, no matter how Raph asks; his brother doesn't need to act like there's anything in it for Donnie.

Donnie turns away, dusting off his hands. "Spit it out, Raph," he says, and doesn't bother to hide his exhaustion. The sooner Raph leaves, the better. Then he can get back to work.

"No, just listen for a minute, would you? We would be _dead_ without you. Dead." When Donnie scoffs and tries to walk away, Raph pushes him back against the wall and holds him there. Donnie shoves back, already feeling sick and colder than ever. Adrenalin splashes into his bloodstream, ready to take the edge off the blow that's coming, but Raph doesn't hit him.

Raph keeps talking.

"We don't work unless we're a team," he says, inches away from Donnie's face. "What happened was — Jesus, it was awful, Donnie, I get it. I was _there._"

Donnie pushes him again, heart pounding, because this is not the script. Raph sounds _kind_, for the second time in the past few weeks, and no, he isn't, Raph isn't _kind. _

"But you got to listen to me, man. Whatever you're doing out here — hiding, avoiding us, avoiding _April_ — it's not helping. It's not fixing anything. "

"How the hell do you know?" Donnie gasps. Something is cracking in his chest, like ice calving, and he's cold. So cold.

"Because nothing is _broken!_" For the first time, Raph shouts. Donnie flinches, echoes of old yelling matches that ended in bruises flashing through his head, and Raph relaxes, steadies himself, but doesn't let go of Donnie's shoulder. "She fell. But you — you saved her." He stops, and holds Donnie's gaze. "Again," he adds, and Donnie feels the crack as the wound — not ice, after all — breaks open.

Guilt is a terrible thing to carry around. It's heavy, but it's warm, and after a while it's comfortable. Soon, it's easy to say, _I can carry just a little bit more, just put it on top_, _it's fine_, and because guilt is both gregarious and a terrible houseguest, it keeps inviting its friends over until standing up straight is impossible.

Donnie hasn't been able to stand for years. _Fix it, Donnie, fix it. _His chest burns; guilt was poison in the wound, and now it's leaking away, evaporating. Sublimated, maybe.

It feels like excavating ruins. None of this has ever seen light or fresh air before: the fear, the anger, all the times Donnie hated Raph even as he pitied him, because his brother is just as locked in his self-loathing as Donnie is.

There's truth in that, and comfort. However much he's hurting, however tired he is, Donnie's not alone.

He closes his eyes, and remembers. April's limp body in his arms, the panicked run to the hospital, leaving her on the edge of the emergency room lights. She had clung to him, weak fingers scratching at his arm. She had wanted him to stay.

He wasted time, but not the way he thought.

"I haven't answered her," he says, his voice sounding light-years away, "because I can't tell her I don't know why she couldn't feel anything or that I don't know what's coming. I don't have any answers, Raph. I'm flying blind."

"I know, Donnie." Raph's rough hand squeezes his shoulder. "We all are. But this isn't the way to figure it out. You're just kicking your own ass." A beat. "You're terrible at it, by the way."

A laugh scatters out of Donnie's mouth, too loud, just this side of hysterical, but the dark burn in his chest retreats. It'll take time to ease the rest of it, but now there's fresh air cycling through the rot, and now he can heal. Now he can fix himself.

He lifts his head, and meets Raph's eyes. "Nice tough love talk," he says, because saying _thank you _to Raph still seems too surreal. Donnie's not quite sure this conversation actually _happened_.

"I do what I can," says Raph, with a smug little smile, and Donnie smiles back, exhausted. Then Raph opens his mouth again.

"I'm — I'm sorry, Donnie."

Donnie boggles at him, mouth open, because unless his memory is shot, this is the second time Raph's apologized in one night, and just like that morning in the lab, he sounds like he means it.

"And I, uh — if you're gonna look for whatever it is we've got coming, I — I can help."

"Are you okay?" Donnie blurts out, mind racing. "Did you hit your head?"

Raph groans. "I'm not good at this whole play-nice thing," he growls, squeezing Donnie's shoulder a little too roughly.

And that, strangely enough, reassures Donnie more than anything Raph could say. It's still Raph in there, concern and apologies aside. Nothing's healed, and the odds are good little will change on the surface — but they're not alone. Raph's got his back, under the sarcasm and eyerolls.

He's got Raph's, too.

"No," says Donnie, "you're really not."

This time, when he laughs, it's with Raph, and the burn recedes a little more.

"Did you mean it?" he asks, when they're silent. "That it's not broken?" _Asking Raph for reassurance. Alert the media, because the end is nigh. _

Raph nods. "But it's gonna be, if you don't, you know. April." He lifts his hand and punches Donnie in the arm. He pulls the punch at the last second, just like they do in training, and Donnie's arm only goes numb. "You're lucky I got here first. Casey's ready to stomp your face."

Donnie bites his tongue. There's a price he'll have to pay for the past two weeks, and he's got nothing to show for it.

Raph shoves him before Donnie can start to pick up the guilt he's dropped. "Leave it," he says, eyes flashing a warning. "Leave that shit behind, man. We don't have time for it. Go, fix this, and then we'll get to work."

Donnie swallows, nods, and with one swipe, erases the quadrants from his head. He's going to need a whole new system for working with Raph.

* * *

Karai holds her place as the White Boar screams, its mouth red and wet and wild.

The brothers have avoided the first trap.

"Karai, it is your turn," the White Boar pants, when its rage is finally quenched and its robes are red to the knees. "Prepare the warhounds."


	4. Walking Wounded: Part Two

_March 6th. _

Years ago, April established one simple rule: if her windows were unlocked, it was fine to come in, be you turtle, alien, or Casey. Locked meant she needed privacy, sleep, air that hadn't been breathed by five other people.

No one's ever tried to break it, though Mikey tends to tap at the window and whine till she lets him in, even now.

She leaves them unlocked, on the off-chance that things will change tonight, the first night she honestly debated not sending a text or calling. In the end, she did both, whispering _please tell me you're okay, because if you're not I'll kill you_ into the phone when his voicemail picked up.

_Dammit, Donnie_, she thinks, staring at her phone in the dark. _We're better than this. _

She tosses the phone into her covers and closes her eyes. In the morning, she'll almost tear her stitches out, crawling around looking for it, but she doesn't care. She rolls on her side and pushes her face into her pillow, counting the aches in her body. Normally she'd reach out and touch Casey's mind as he slept, but Casey isn't there, and it seems like pressing her luck to keep reaching out for the last few minds she can feel. One step too far, and she'll lose the rest of them, and be alone in her head as much as she's alone in her apartment.

_I'm not calling him tomorrow_, she promises herself, and for the first time, anger starts to overpower her misery. _I can't. _

Even with that promise, she tosses in her covers — carefully — for an hour before something warm brushes against her mind: hesitant, quiet — almost penitent. The touch is so soft she barely notices at first, and the window in the living room creaks open before she realizes what it is.

_Friend or foe? _She reaches for her tessen, though in her current state, she'd be lucky to get one good throw in if whatever just came in isn't friendly.

Someone knocks on her bedroom door. Her breath catches, and she strangles the last of her hope before it can bloom.

"Casey?" she calls, her voice rough and tired. "That you?"

"Uh, no. It's…me. Can I come in?"

She covers her mouth. "Yeah," she whispers. "Come in."

Donnie pushes the door open, ducking to pass through, and hovers, hands steepled in front of his chest. His mind's colors and taste are muted, lonely and apologetic — greys and browns and bland bread without salt — but when she holds her hand out to him, he stumbles in and sits on the edge of her bed.

"April, I—"

Before he can get started on his apology — and she can tell it's going to be a good one, because the emotions rolling against her mind are buttressed with Donnie's usual attention to detail — she pulls her hand away from his and punches him in the bicep. The blow isn't anywhere near as hard as she usually manages, but she doesn't pull it at the last second. He takes it with a wince and another sigh, his hand curving over the sore spot, and his posture crumbles a little more.

"Fuck you," she hisses. He just hangs his head. "Where have you _been_? You promised —" She flops back to her pillows, her hand over her mouth and her eyes squeezed shut. If she starts crying, she's never going to be able to get it all out. He ignored her for three weeks — his best friend, his _partner_. April's anger deserves the chance to sink its teeth into him.

But all it takes is one look at Donnie, and how he's still got his hand over his bicep, how he's staring at the floor like he wishes he could slip through the cracks in the boards, and her anger drains away. As much as she hates to admit it, Donnie had his reasons for staying away. They're probably terrible reasons, cut from the whole cloth of the guilt he wraps around himself like a blanket, but they exist, and she wants to know what they are.

After that, she can be as pissed as she wants.

With her good arm and leg, she tries to push herself up against the headboard, but wrestling with her sheets and comforter is beyond her. She manages to lift her head and shoulders before her ribs creak a warning and she stops, holding her breath, waiting for the pain to hit.

Before it does, Donnie moves. One hand cradles the nape of her neck, the other rests at the small of her back, far away from any of the knots of pain waiting in her muscles. She wraps her good arm around his neck for balance as he lifts her slowly, easing her into position. His skin is cold under her fingers, the edge of his shell like a rim of ice.

"You're freezing," she says, almost an accusation. "How long did you stand out there before you came in, Donnie?"

"You want the time to the exact second, or should I round it up?" He glances up at her, the sarcastic edge in his voice blunted by the way misery has drawn tight lines around his mouth.

The fact that she's close enough to see those lines sends a quick dart of longing through April's chest. Their whole story is melodrama: the bad timing, the lingering looks and touches, the slow, stiff dance around each other. But living a melodrama is very different from seeing it, or hearing about it, and April is smart enough to realize a part of her selfishly treasures the longing and the anticipation. There's an expiration date for how long she can let them reasonably exist in this in-between before it threatens to ruin them — ruin the group — but she knows she'll miss this too, when it's over.

Over, one way or another.

She sweeps her fingers over the back of his neck, where his skin holds the late winter chill, and then pulls her hand away.

"There's a blanket on the chair," she says, nodding over his shoulder. "Go turn up the heat if you want."

"I'm fine."

"Donnie." His eyes jolt guiltily to hers before flicking away, and April pokes him in the plastron. "Get the blanket. I'm not talking to someone who's about to go torpid."

He huffs half-heartedly and lets his hands slip away from her. The blanket gets draped over his shoulders like a cape. The heat gets turned up to seventy, then seventy-five when April arches an eyebrow at him.

Then he sits down on the edge of her bed, shoulders curved inward and head bent, and doesn't say a word.

April gives him a bare fifteen seconds to gather his thoughts before she pounces.

"If you came here just to sit here and look pathetic, then you're doing a bang-up job." Harsher than she wanted to sound, but a mean spark of satisfaction flares briefly in her head when Donnie winces at her voice. _He deserved that_, she reassures herself, but she still tempers her next few words. "We need to talk, Donnie."

"I know!" Now it's April's turn to wince at his sudden half-shout, and Donnie's eyes are bloodshot and dull when he looks at her. "Believe me, I know. It's just hard to figure out what to say, because what _can_ I say? 'Oh, hi April, I'm here to apologize for disappearing on you for almost a month after you _fell off a roof_, but don't worry, I can explain!'" He draws in a huge breath, but exhales instead of speaking. One hand rises into the air, palm-up, then curls into a defeated fist and falls to his knee.

_Well, I did want him to talk_, April thinks ruefully, and turns her back to her own misery. Donnie is broken, smashed to bits inside, and he's doing it to himself. She reaches out and curves her hand over his wrist. He jumps at the contact, eyes flicking to hers again before locking on her hand.

"Can you explain?" she asks. "I'm listening."

Donnie pulls in another deep breath.

"I wanted to come see you. I knew I should. I mean, I promised you I would, but every time I tried, I just — I couldn't, April. What happened to you…" His mouth trembles, but he keeps forcing the words out of his chest. "What happened to you, that was —"

"Not your fault," April interrupts, squeezing his wrist. He's still so cold under her fingers, even with the blanket and the heat rattling out of the vents.

Donnie ignores her. "That shouldn't have happened. Rahzar shouldn't have been able to hide what he was doing from you. It was — _wrong_. And I couldn't figure out how. I couldn't see what had gone wrong. There were answers, and I knew if I looked for them long enough, I'd find them and then I could fix it. That's what I do, you know? _Donnie, fix it_." He laughs, pitilessly, and April squeezes his wrist again. "Only this time I couldn't find anything, no matter how hard I looked. I didn't want to come to you with nothing, not when."

April waits for Donnie to go on, but all he gives her is a resigned little shrug. Then he curls into himself, arms wrapped around his chest and eyes closed, looking like he wants to crawl inside his shell and never come out again. Given the chance, April knows he would. He's defeated. She doesn't know what made him finally decide to come, but something did, and the person sitting on the edge of her bed is a raw, flayed nerve.

_It isn't fair_, says a cold, ringing voice in her head_._ She's the one who fell, the one who needs comfort, but Donnie's the one falling apart. He should be doting on her like he always does, warm and hopeful and selfless.

_Life's not fair,_ she reminds herself, thinking of the Kraang, of her father, of Shredder and Karai, of every mutant who came howling for her. She thinks of being sixteen and terrified on a summer night, and of how it could have ended. _But he's not the only one who can fix stuff. _

April eases onto her knees — slowly, slowly, because every movement hurts — and inches over to Donnie's side. He looks up, and his eyes go wide, ready to tell her to stop or she'll hurt herself, but she slings her good arm around his chest and presses her face into his neck.

"I don't care about the answers," she says. "You should have _come_, Donnie. I missed you so much." She feels an old stiffness leave his muscles as he shudders and melts into her. "It's going to be okay," she promises him, her voice wavering before breaking completely. He should have been with her, and deep down she's so mad at him she wants to scream, but —

He's here now, smelling of leather and sweat and oil, and so steady under her hands. She starts shaking, and Donnie's arms wrap around her, ever so gently, ever so careful not to hurt her. April let herself go, shoving herself as close as she can get, and cries until her throat is sore.

* * *

From her perch across the street, hidden behind a slim little weave of a spell, Karai watches the O'Neil woman and the turtle embrace.

_Which one is that? _she wonders absently. Crouching for a better look, she frowns. Purple mask. Long and lanky, all awkward angles — the one who fought her off with a bo all those years back, though the weapon is nowhere in sight.

_With a naginata_. _Be accurate, Karai. _

His name is Donatello, but she no longer cares. In five minutes, Donatello will be screaming, and in ten, he'll be mad or dead. The warhounds tend to have that effect on people.

_And mutants_, she thinks with a dark smile. Xever had lasted almost half an hour against them, but in the end, he fell too.

She knows Raphael sent his brother to see O'Neil, which means Raphael will be the one blamed when the warhounds' work is found. Fine by her. Raphael stopped entertaining her a long time before she disappeared.

Leonardo will be the one to blame him, for the loss of the woman and their brother.

The turtle and the woman are still hugging. Clinging to each other, like they're trying to stand up against a high wind. Karai waits to see if a shred of pity surfaces, one slender moment of remorse for the hell she's about to send against them.

None. None at all. She has nothing left to call her own, not even hate, and her body is just a receptacle for the White Boar's plans.

She breathes in, ready to release the warhounds, and pauses.

The turtle is leaning back, his eyes on O'Neil's face, and even from this distance, Karai can see the fragile, careful way he holds her in his gaze. His hands are clumsy, his palms as wide as O'Neil's shoulder blades, but he touches her with care. With respect. With —

Is that longing, leaping in her empty chest again? Is there a name on her tongue?

It doesn't matter. Karai's as much beyond longing and wishful thinking as she is beyond saving.

She inhales, and feels the warhounds rise inside her body. When she exhales into the cold night, they ride her breath in a sickly green flood, soundlessly panting, down toward the window.

* * *

Donnie once read that in the absence of proper nutrition, the body will remembers its old scars. Wounds resurface, tributaries of a great unforgotten sea of pain.

The idea appeals to him. For the last month, he's ignored the way his shoulders ached, the way the seven-years-gone split in his shell sang, and sank himself into his work.

He lets their familiar silence stretch out between them as April's body heat soaks into his arm. Oh, he had missed _her_ so much, the careless way she invades his personal space, the way the smell of apples clings to her skin even in the dead of winter, the way she _listens _to him. Leo tries to keep up with him, and Mikey will humor him until something shinier comes along, but April _understands_. More than that, she _cares_, and there's nothing mercenary in her affection.

She loves him, enough to listen and to forgive — enough to miss him — and it's not the love he dreams about, but it's love. And really, does he have so much of that in his life that he can turn any of it down when it comes his way? Especially when it's April?

When she finally pulls away, wiping her eyes and shoving her hair out of her face, it's all he can do not to snatch her back and spill his apologies over her. He needs to apologize. He stood out in the cold to plan his apology, and he doesn't want it to go to waste. Even if April is giving him a soft, almost shy look from under her wet lashes.

"April, I'm —"

"Tea," she says. "Can you make some? That almond blend you like is in the cupboard."

Donnie blinks at her, not quite comprehending her sudden shift at first. Tea. Yes. He can go and make tea, because April obviously wants him out of the room for a few minutes while she gathers herself. And then they'll talk, and he'll apologize, and maybe they'll hug again —

"I can do that," he says, and pushes off the bed. "Don't, uh. Go anywhere?"

The joke comes out as a question instead, and he winces at the awkward trip in his voice.

April blows her bangs out of her eyes. "Right. I'll cancel that marathon I was about to run. _Tea_, Donnie." She leans back against her pillows, her mouth tightening as her left leg twists, but she shoos him away when he bends toward her. "I'm fine, just sore. Two sugars?" she asks, hopefully, eyes wide.

Donnie makes a face. "Blasphemy." He pulls the door half-closed as he leaves, feeling lighter than he has in weeks. Almost like he can let himself smile.

_We'll be okay_, he tells himself, picking his way through the stacks of books piled on the floor. April isn't neat at the best of times, and with Casey temporarily living with her, the levels of clutter hover just below what Donnie can handle. The urge to straighten up, just a bit, makes his hands twitch, but he steers himself resolutely toward the kitchen, letting one corner of his mouth hitch upward.

_More than okay. We'll talk. She'll help me figure it out, and then —_

The front door clicks open, ending any hope of his smile growing, and Donnie reaches back on reflex for his bo. His hand only grabs empty air.

_You left your bo by the window, idiot. Two steps back and three to your left, now move!_

The light flicks on before he can take a step, and Casey walks in, swinging his bat in lazy circles. He tosses his keys on the hall table, muttering, and doesn't see Donnie until he's in the living room.

_Well, shit_, thinks Donnie, when Casey looks up and his gaze darkens. _Should have figured on a fight. _

Casey's brows pucker together, a muscle ticking in his jaw as his shoulders rise, and Donnie braces his feet. He can take Casey, that's not the issue. The issue is that a blowout with Casey will tear to shreds the fragile sense of peace he's managed to claw back since he talked to Raph.

He meets Casey's gaze without flinching, though. Whatever comes, he'll accept it.

Casey's eyes narrow, and his hand twists around the handle of his bat before he lets it drop to his side. Donnie watches the tension leave Casey's arms, glancing up to search Casey's face.

With a short, grudging nod — a _bro nod_, Donnie's brain helpfully supplies — Casey pivots on his heel and slips inside his room, closing the door and locking it with a pointed, sharp _snick_.

"O-okay, then," says Donnie into the silence. "Good talk, Casey." A dog howls down the street, a needle-sharp noise that spirals upward before it cuts off with a squeal. Donnie shivers, and shakes his head. It's Leo's job to hear and see things that aren't there, not his. His job is to make tea, and to fix this mess.

He's taken his next two steps toward the kitchen when he hears a hesitant noise behind him: the creak of bedsprings, the rustle of soft sheets, all normal and expected — but underneath, there's a quick intake of breath that's not quite a gasp.

"April?" he calls, low and unhurried, trying to ignore the knee-jerk worry that tries to dig into his gut. "You okay in there?" He glances over his shoulder toward April's room, but the door blocks his view.

The worry stings, once. He forgets the tea and turns around, picking his way through the clutter on light, silent feet. _Did she faint? Is she hurt? Did she fall? _

"April?"

He hears the sound again, restless and plaintive. It's not a sound, it's his name, hissed out between clenched teeth.

"_Donatello_."

The windows in the living room shatter inward, drenching Donnie with bits of broken glass. He doesn't have time to turn away, only to throw one of his arms up to protect his face. A shard half as long as his hand buries itself into the ball of his shoulder.

For two long seconds, he's too stunned to move. Precious seconds lost, before his training kicks in and sends him leaping over the last piles of books, back toward April's room, feet crunching in the glass. The curtains billow inward on a hot wind that smells like meat left outside on a hot day. It smells spoiled and _wrong_, like it's made of bad angles, but that can't be right. Smells don't have angles, they have molecules, they're byproducts of chemical reactions —

The door to April's room slams shut before he reaches it. When he tries to twist the knob, it doesn't move, as unresponsive as a rock in his hand.

"Donnie! Are you okay?" April's voice leaks through to him from the other side, more bewildered than frightened. "What's going on? I heard — _oh god._"

"April!" Donnie smashes the heel of his hand against the door, and the movement makes the splinter in his shoulder shift. He wrenches it out, barely feeling the sting through the adrenalin._Careful, careful, get it out now and let it bleed itself clean, leave it in there and you'll rip your arm open when you try to move._ "Can you — can you get the door open?"

There's no response, only a heavy thud from April's side of the door. Now the worry is panic, sticky as honey and just as sweet, riding his nerves and fouling thire signals. He sucks in a breath, gagging when the stench fills his sinuses, and hits the door again.

"Donnie, what the hell?" Casey stands in the door of his room, in gym shorts and a t-shirt, bat in hand, rubbing his eyes. "What did you — holy fuck." He covers his nose and mouth. "What died?"

"Shut up!" Donnie yells, pulling back with one foot raised. "Shut up and give me a hand!" He slams the sole of his foot into the door, the impact jarring loose aches from old training runs. He ignores them. The wood splinters but doesn't break, and he's leaning back to kick it again when Casey shouts behind him.

"Incoming!"

From the corner of his eye, Donnie sees the curtains billow in again, and something floods into the living room.

Donnie's first reaction is confusion: _who let those dogs in here? _

His second is instinctual: _teeth_.

They aren't dogs, even if they carry themselves on four legs with a brush-tail arching over their backs. They move without pressure over the broken glass, like pale green smoke, and they carry the stink with them.

And their teeth gleam like jade in the darkness.

"Holy fuck," Casey whispers again. His bat hangs uselessly at his side. "Donnie, what the hell…"

Donnie bites the inside of his cheek, mind working. He doesn't know how many there are, but they keep spilling into the living room, and they've all got their teeth bared.

_We're being surrounded. Split their focus. _

"I don't know, Casey," he says, bending into a crouch, trying to forget how there isn't a sound from the other side of April's door. "Why don't we hit them and find out what happens?"

He leaps.

Form has always followed function for Donnie, but even Splinter would have to admire the way he clears the dogs' heads and lands lightly on their other side. He snatches his bo from its place by the window, gritting his teeth against the glass that digs into his feet, and swings at the first dog to run at him.

The blow scatters it like sand. Milky gobbets from its neck cling to his bo, and his relief that a conventional attack worked fades when a burst of the stench hits him, thick and clinging. It's in his lungs, it's in his head, fester and death and poison, a wound gone to rot, and it's _inside him_.

It's not just the smell, either.

_Hello, Donatello,_ says a sweet voice, carried on the crest of the stench. It fills him, presses his awareness to the far limits of his own body. _Are you listening? Good. Time is very short, and I did so want to talk to you before my little pets get their teeth in you. I want you to know that this is not personal, this little game. It is not about _you.

_It is about _food_. The oldest game in the world: the devourer, and the devoured. _

_I am sure that enormous brain of yours can tell you which one you are. _

* * *

Karai straightens up from her crouch. One more exhale should do it, then her body can stop being the channel and start being a weapon again. It's her job to finish what the warhounds have started; they're trained to inflict pain and fear in equal measure, but nothing more. Vanguards of insanity.

They make messes, and Karai arranges what's left into an appealing picture.

Through the gauzy curtains, she watches the man drop to his knees as one of the warhounds sinks its teeth in his bicep. His cries are very faint, crystallized by the cold air, like the notes of a music box. Donatello, on the other hand, doesn't make a sound as another warhound slams him into the wall, its teeth at his throat. His bo clatters from his hands as the hounds swarm over him, dragging their teeth through the skin on his legs.

_Stupid stick. _Karai allows herself a thin, smug smile. _Should have upgraded. _

She turns her head to the right, toward O'Neil's room. All she sees are two pale legs, splayed unmoving on the floor. Not surprising; the present Karai brought for her from the White Boar probably overloaded her nervous system.

Time for that last breath. The warhounds are almost finished. Karai inhales, lungs full to bursting, and chokes when a cold, heavy hand wraps around her neck. She hisses, thrashing and kicking against the body behind her.

"Long time no see, Karai," Raphael whispers, and presses his sai to the hollow under her ear. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't finish you right now."


	5. Walking Wounded: Part Three

One of the hidden benefits to having so much headspace was that no matter how full his mind seemed, Donnie always had a few dark corners left to himself. It's nearly impossible for him to stop thinking, and even though the voice fills him to brimming with sweet, tar-black laughter, he can still reason.

He can still plan.

So when the beasts throw him against the wall, their mouths hot on his legs, Donnie still manages to keep hold of his bo. Even after he staggers and falls to his back, striking his head against the floor, he doesn't let go. He nearly greys out, his vision going white and wavering, and he can only scream breathlessly when he feels sharp-clawed paws pinning down his legs.

His scream turns into a howl when the first teeth bury themselves in his thigh. It _hurts_, and even the pressure of the voice and the laughter can't block out the pain; it feels like hot wires are being shoved into his muscles and twisted. Nothing has ever hurt like this. Not having the wasp venom in his bloodstream, not nearly losing the tips of his fingers to acid, not Slash grabbing his arm and wrenching it back with a smile. This pain drenches him, sticky and heavy, oil just waiting for the flame.

Donnie tries to breathe, but the voice's weight clamps down around his throat and squeezes.

His grip on his bo is weakening.

_You are strong, Donatello, _the voice purrs. _You and your brothers, together you would be the first challenge I have had since before the first ships landed on this soil. But you are not together, are you? You are alone. Your brothers are far away. So very far away. _

_Let me show you just how far away your family is. _

A flash of light, as green and sickly as the skin of the beasts, blanks out the inside of Donnie's mind, and it doesn't matter that he can still think. He's being forced to _see_.

_What is there to see? _

_A walled fortress, its walls grey and weathered. The trees surrounding it are dead, twisted and bleached white. A cold wind blows through the open gates of the fortress, and a cage hung high over the walls rocks gently. The cage is empty, but the bars are filthy with handprints. _

_There's a courtyard just beyond the gates, filled with machinery and heaped stones and — yes. Bodies. There are bodies everywhere, most of them dressed in the black silk uniforms of the Foot, but some of them are in coveralls and mismatched bits of armor. There must be hundreds of people lying dead in the courtyard, pale and thin and broken beyond recognition. _

_There's no way to tell who the victors are. _

_The wind rocks the cage again_

_At the other end of the courtyard are the first bursts of color in the entire scene. A woman with flame-red hair is sprawled at the foot of the steps in a pool of her own blood. She died in terror and pain, if the set of her mouth is to be believed, but she also died reaching out, the tips of her fingers just a few feet away from a gnarled, crooked hand. A green hand, the skin dull and ashen. _

_So far away, _says the voice, delighted. _So very far away._

Donnie can't look away. The red hair, the green skin. He can't see his brother's face, but the conviction is in his blood: even though there's no mask and an old leather jacket covers his brother's body, it's Raph. His brother. Dead. Reaching out for a dead woman.

A dead woman with red, red hair. His gut twists, and he prays _not April, please, not April _as he's forced to look at her face.

He doesn't know her. Her face means nothing to him; he's never seen her, not even in passing. So why does his chest feel so empty, why do his eyes sting? She's a stranger. He doesn't know her at all.

The voice laughs. _Keep watching, Donatello. I have so much more to show you before I'm done. _

Donnie tries to scream, tries to move, but the teeth are in him and the voice is pressing the breath out of his lungs.

_Help me — _he begs, but there's no one to hear. His brothers are dead.

_Help yourself. _If he can see, he can think, and if he can think, he can _fight. _

He still has his bo.

Karai swallows, considering her options. She doesn't stop squirming in Raphael's grip, because the sudden absence of resistance would only make him more suspicious. She needs a few seconds to think.

The mission — drive one of the brothers mad, then kill him and the O'Neil woman — has failed. She can't keep the warhounds focused on their prey if the air's being forced out of her lungs, and that means the conduit to the Boar is fraying, coming apart like an old rope. The warhounds can sense her distraction; one of them raises its head from Donatello's body and sniffs the air, whuffling hopefully.

She needs to breathe. The warhounds can't exist without breath. Her inhales and exhales keep their tissue-thin hearts beating, and already the beat stutters, and the weakest warhounds reel back, whining. But Raphael doesn't know that. The only way she's getting out of this in one piece is if Raphael believes she's still controlling the attack, rather than just directing it.

"I can stop it," she rasps with the last of her air. "Your brother — the man — let me call them off and —"

"You're seriously asking me to believe a word you say?" The point of Raphael's sai bites into her neck, and Karai hisses. She feels the ice-spark of pain, but she won't bleed, and hopes it's too dark for Raphael to see.

"Do you want to save your brother?" she hisses, and her air runs out. A glance tells her that the warhounds haven't started to decay yet, but even the strongest are getting slower, their teeth and claws barely drawing blood.

Raphael's hand twitches, his sai digging deeper, and then releases her. Karai drops to the roof, gasping and clutching her throat as the warhounds roar their approval. She's lost some of the older ones, their green essences bleeding away to nothing, but the young ones — hungry, new to the game — set themselves on the man and Donatello with fresh energy. She can barely see the man under their gleaming sides, but Donatello —

He's moving. Feeble struggles, really, and Karai coughs out a disdainful little laugh at the sight. There have to be seven warhounds on him, and what the Boar must be showing him through them should be dissolving the last of his sanity. A few more minutes, and he won't even remember his own name. He'll be filled with the laughter of the Boar and he'll see nothing but nightmares.

And then he'll die.

_I can salvage this,_ she thinks, allowing herself a smile as she draws in a huge breath. Her throat aches, but that pain is nothing, not compared to what the Boar will do to her if she comes back a failure. It won't kill her, but it'll feed.

The air in her lungs sets the warhounds to snarling. They swarm up Donatello's body in a green wave, ready to get their teeth in his throat, and Karai is already smiling in anticipation of Raphael's reaction when Donatello bolts upright, swinging something through the warhounds as he staggers to his feet.

His damned bo. The bastard never let go of it. Karai hisses through her teeth as the warhounds break apart. She can reform them, send them after Donatello again, but that will take time. She sucks in a breath anyways, willing her focus and her strength toward the warhounds and trying to hold them together as Donatello, screaming, swings his bo again. The warhounds shatter under the blow, and even with blood dripping down his legs, even unsteady on his feet, Donatello's blows never miss.

Raphael makes a sharp, satisfied little noise. "Looks like he's good," he says, just before he grabs Karai's neck again, choking the air out of her.

She can see Donatello from the edge of her vision, eyes white, lifting his bo over his head. Then Raph slams her face-first into the gravel on the roof, and Karai doesn't have time to inhale before she blacks out.

Donnie stands in the middle of April's living room, panting. The beasts are melting away, scraps of flimsy green matter breaking off their legs and heads to crumble on the floor. They whine as they decay, just like normal dogs, and that's almost worse than the pain still digging into his legs and the dull, hot scrapes in his plastron. That little bit of reality, after the attack, after what he saw, makes his stomach roll over in a greasy swoop. Whining like kicked dogs, like hurt dogs.

He shudders and makes himself swallow. As an afterthought, he blinks his third lid away.

April's door is still closed. He nearly bolts for it, panic surfacing through the muddle of his thoughts, but a low groan from near the door to the bathroom pulls him back. Without looking down at his legs, he leans on his bo and limps across the room to where Casey lies slumped against the wall.

"Casey," he croaks, his last scream still stinging in his throat. "Come on, Casey, open your eyes." He grabs Casey's wrist and counts. _Pulse steady. That's good. _He sits back on his feet, cringing when the glass in his soles digs deeper, and scans Casey's body. There's a bloody hole in Casey's shirt near his armpit, and scrapes running the length of both arms. If there's more, Donnie can't see — not without moving Casey. He sets his teeth, hoping what he's about to do won't aggravate some hidden injury, and lifts Casey's arm to get a better look at the gash.

Casey's hissed curse startles him, and he shifts away awkwardly, dropping Casey's arm.

"Tryin' to kill me, Don?" Casey cracks an eye open. "Jesus. Be a little careful, will you?"

"I was checking for injuries," Donnie snaps, relief tempering his words. He hadn't seen Casey in that dead, wintry courtyard, but if Raph was there, then Casey wouldn't be far behind. Donnie swallows in a suddenly thick throat and blinks fast. _Casey's right here_, he tells himself sternly. _Take care of what's in front of you. _

Casey relaxes, lets Donnie lift his arm again, and groans as Donnie gently prods the skin near the gash. "Well, you found one. _Shit_. This hurts like hell."

"Hold still." Casey huffs but lets Donnie lean in without comment. The wound isn't deep, but the skin and muscle underneath are torn. "I don't think you'll need stitches," Donnie says, "but you're still bleeding. We need to get antiseptic on that — I don't want to think about what those things had —"

A heavy weight lands behind him, and Donnie swivels around, pulling his bo across his body.

"Holy shit," says Raph. He shifts the dark bundle in his arms and looks around the room, eyes wide. "Shit," he says, in a softer voice, when he catches sight of Donnie and Casey.

"We're good," Casey says, and flashes a weak thumb's-up.

Donnie's about to open his mouth to protest — they are _not_ good, they are the opposite of _good_, because he and Casey are both still bleeding and April is still locked in her room — but then April's door creaks open, and Raph drops the bundle to the floor.

"Donnie, are you okay?" April's voice is murky, almost sleep-drunk. "Casey? Oh my God, what…" She follows everyone's gaze to the unmoving bundle at Raph's feet, where Karai's profile is clearly lit by the light coming in through the empty windows.

"What the fuck," says Casey cheerfully, "is she doing here?"

Donnie can only nod. _What the fuck, indeed. _Before he can do more than look at Raph, eyebrows raised and ten questions struggling to be asked at the same time, April stumbles out of her room.

"April, no, don't, there's glass everywhere!" he warns, one hand thrown out to stop her, but she ignores him. Of course she does; it's April, and even if her feet are bare under the cuffs of her pajama pants, she's still going to come to make sure he and Casey are all right.

In spite of the last few minutes and the lingering echoes of the wind through the bars of the cage, when April throws her arms around him for the second time that night, all Donnie feels is relief. And yes, love, always love. He cradles the back of her head and pulls her close, away from the broken glass.

Twenty minutes later, Donnie sits on the edge of April's bathtub, and trying not to wince as April cleans the bite wounds on his legs. It hurts, no matter how gentle she tries to be, so he attempts to distract himself by watching the way light breaks on her hair. Fluorescent light does April's complexion no favors; it washes her out and blurs her freckles to smudges, but at least he can focus on naming all the different shades that gleam in the terrible light. There's apricot, and orange, and even streaks of dark gold and honey. If he reached out, the strands would feel almost coarse under his fingers. Peace in the particulars.

He keeps his hands to himself, fisted on the edge of the tub. Raph and Casey murmur in the living room, moving carefully through the glass and splintered wood as they clean. The gash at Casey's armpit turned out to be shallow but wide, and he waved Donnie's concern away as soon as April peeled herself away from them.

"Go get cleaned up," he said, pointing at the bathroom. "You're bleedin' all over the hardwood."

Over Casey's shoulder, Raph shrugged and nodded. _We've got this, _he mouthed. Donnie wasn't sure if whether Raph meant the room, Karai, or a combination of the two, but after his brother nodded a second time, Donnie let April ease him into the bathroom and onto the tub. She picked the glass out of his feet, and another shard from his bicep, cleaning and bandaging the wounds with gentle, practiced efficiency. They've all become battlefield medics, and while Donnie and Mikey are the best, the calmest, the rest aren't slouches. April's expression doesn't change even as she cleans teeth marks high on his thighs.

"So, Karai," she says, tossing another cotton ball into the trash and pulling a fresh one from the bag.

Donnie breathes in through his nose and lets it out slowly. "Karai," he murmurs. "First Rahzar, then Karai. Might be the Foot's making a comeback."

"After seven years?" April douses the cotton ball with antiseptic and dabs a long gash. Donnie winces, and tries to hide it, and April looks up in silent apology. "You guys trashed them pretty good, even before the Shredder got killed. Why did they wait till now to make a move?"

"No idea." If only he could shrug off the memory of wind, he'd be able to reason this out. As it is, all he can muster is a bleak sigh. "I bet that's the first Leo's going to ask Karai when he gets — ah!" He jerks his leg back and almost tumbles into the bathtub as a bolt of pain shoots up from his right knee.

April looks up guiltily, her lip caught between her teeth. "Sorry! I just — I thought there was something in one of the bites, so I tried to pull it out with the tweezers. Sorry."

Donnie takes a deep breath, nodding. "It's fine. What was it?"

April hesitates until Donnie holds out his hand, then reluctantly drops something into his palm.

"I think it's a —"

"Tooth," Donnie finishes, feeling sick. He closes his hand over the tooth, feeling the point prick his palm, and shuts his eyes.

_There's a scientific explanation, _he tells himself sternly, before his anxiety can strangle him. _Whatever that was, I can figure it out. And now I have a specimen. I'll get back to the lab and I can run tests, I can break it down and start finding out what makes it work, and then I can figure out what the hell those things were, and I won't have to keep hearing that wind or seeing that cage. I'll beat it._

His train of thought stops its rush when a warm hand cradles his cheek. When he opens his eyes, April is standing between his legs, her eyes shadowed but bright, and warm. Concerned, but warm.

"Donnie," she says, and strokes his cheek. That's all it takes for him to slump down and lean his head on her chest, the aches in his legs fading as the wind blows through his mind again. He's colder than he was when he first got to her apartment. This chill goes straight through him instead of resting on his skin, and nothing can warm him up, not even the way April's other hand moves in gentle circles over his shell.

He doesn't cry. What he feels is too bleak for tears, or for sound. The wind is in his ears. As long as he had to fight, or take care of Casey, he could block it out, but now it slips through him, searching out the hollows in his bones. Whether he keeps his eyes open or closed, all he sees is the courtyard, and the brief, dying bursts of color against the stone.

His fist clenches, and the point of the tooth digs into his palm. The sharp pain cuts the wind's song down to a whisper. He can hear April saying his name.

"Sorry," he mumbles, and pulls away. He doesn't let himself get so close without April initiating it, and no matter what he's feeling, there's no excuse.

"Don't." April's hand is still on his shell, but instead of tracing circles, she's drawing him closer. "You don't have to apologize, Donnie."

He gives her a wry, unsteady smile that feels icy on his mouth. "Why not? It's what I came here for."

April sighs. "You're not going to let that go, are you? Seriously, Donnie, after what just happened —"

"Are _you_ okay?" he interrupts, before April can go any farther. The wind will stay in his ears, not hers. "You're patching me up, but what about you?"

"I'm fine." April finally lets go of him and turns to the sink, picking up a handful of gauze and bandages. "I've got a headache and some bruises from when I hit the floor, but that's it." She rubs her bad shoulder through her shirt, grimacing. "To be honest, I don't even know what happened. It felt like a truck slammed me in the forehead, and then I came to on the floor."

"Are you —"

"I'm sure, Donnie." She moves back in to crouch between his legs. "Right now, I'm worried about you. And I figure I owe you about ten years' worth of over-protectiveness, so indulge me, okay?" As she spreads the first bandage over his thigh and winds gauze over it, she gives him one of her precise, commanding looks. "What happened?"

He can't tell her. It's bad enough he's got to carry the courtyard around in his head and be chilled by the wind that blows through it. _My head's the only one big enough to hold it,_ he thinks. _She doesn't need to know._ He sighs, but winces when the motion sends a ripple of pain over his plastron.

"Oh, Donnie, let me take a look." April bends, her fingers sweeping through the air just over his plastron. "Where does it hurt?"

He waves vaguely at his chest and side. "It's just a little sore."

April doesn't even dignify his lie with a glance up to his face. She runs her fingers across the new gouges, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth. Then, she reaches behind her without looking and scoops up the bottle of antiseptic and the bag of cotton balls. The bottle and the bag are both economy-sized, and April has at least two more of each under her sink. They look ludicrously over-sized in her hands, and Donnie feels a strained, too-bright laugh welling up inside him. _A delayed reaction to the fight and all the adrenalin in his system_, his mind rattles off dully. _Totally normal._

"You should really buy in bulk," Donnie says, forcing the laugh down. "You'd save a ton of money, the way we go through that stuff." He waits for her to laugh, but April stays serious, watching his face. After a few moments of silence pass, she reaches up and cups his cheek again. Her hand is soft and warm, with calluses near the knuckles from holding her tessen. He's dreamed of April touching him like this, and it makes him ache in his wrists and throat. It's not the way he wanted it, because she's not looking at him with want, but with gentle concern, and he strangles down the old hope — the hope that refuses to die — and meets her gaze.

"I'm doing fine," he says in reply to her not-yet-spoken question, which isn't quite a lie.

April's mouth twists, and her eyes flash. "Bullshit," she says a moment later. "I know when you're lying to me, Donnie." She pushes closer, never breaking his gaze. "Your thoughts get all…muddy. Like the river after a storm."

Donnie gapes at her. "But we thought —" His voice dies when she leans up and kisses him between the eyes.

"Whatever happened, they can't take that away," she says. "I've still got you guys in my head, even if I can't feel anything else." She rubs her shoulder again, her jaw tightening. "I'm just so glad I've still got that, because it feels like I'm deaf, or blind, you know? Like, I can still see and hear, but there's a layer missing. I just — I don't know." When April meets his gaze, the ceiling light makes the circles under her eyes look like bruises. "It'd be awful without hearing you guys," she says, and looks away, chewing her lip.

Donnie inches forward and hugs her, for the third time that night. She relaxes into him, curving herself away from the gouges in his plastron and resting her head on his shoulder. He doesn't allow himself this indulgence often, this daydream, this _what if_. With every part of him aching and sore, and with the nightmare courtyard still looming behind his eyelids, though, he needs it. He needs April, and the way sunlight seems to love her, gathering itself around the fine points of bone in her shoulders and wrists. She's not his. But she's with him, and for a moment, he can pretend they belong to each other. Donnie listens to April breathe, memorizes her hands on his shell, and imagines what his life would have been like if she had chosen him, at any point over the last ten years. Instead of trying to race her thready pulse to the hospital that night, they might have been in his lab, or watching a movie, or bundled together on a roof counting the trains racing by in the distance.

And instead of watching her pick glass out of his feet and bandage his legs, he might have asked her to dance, and she might have said yes, and he'd be able to watch the way her muscles shifted under her skin, until the heat in his chest made him reach out and reel her in. She might have let him.

It's a good daydream, and April is so close, so warm and gentle, that he can almost believe it happened. That she said yes, that she never fell, that she is in love with him.

April shifts closer, still watching his face, her new, fierce smile spreading over her mouth. Donnie's heart stutters, and he's about to say her name — just _April?_, not a question, not really, but all his hope condensed into one moment — when the collar of her shirt shifts and he sees the ugly red supernova of the scar on her shoulder.

Donnie swallows, the warmth leaking out of his thoughts, and settles back into his life. He's tired, he's hurt, and now his head is cold and full of wind. He lets his forehead rest against hers and closes his eyes. The cage rattles, high over both their heads.

"Is that — Donnie, your head is so _cold_." April squeezes the back of his neck. "Donnie?"

_No. _He wills the courtyard away, stuffs it in one of the dusty corners in the back of his head and breathes in. Apples. Sunlight. April.

"What do you want?" says April eventually, jarring Donnie back to reality, white light flooding his vision. He's about to ask her who she's talking to, when he realizes someone is knocking on the bathroom door. She uncurls from around him slowly. Even in profile, her face is weary. He keeps his hand on her back, steadying her as she pulls the door open.

Casey is leaning against the doorframe, smirking down at them. Not unkindly, but with a friendly little leer that follows how April is crouched between Donnie's legs, his feet dwarfing hers. Donnie sighs and pull away from April. The last thing he needs tonight is Casey to start humming "Give A Little Bit" again.

April cuts Casey one of her _don't even think about it _glares, and Casey straightens immediately, right to business. "Leo and Mikey are on their way," he says. "Be here in ten — they're takin' the long way, sweepin' the perimeter."

"Why aren't we heading to the lair?" April asks with another grimace as she stands up, one hand on her bad leg. "In case you guys forgot to tell Leo, my apartment's a war zone. Half my windows are gone_. _As long as we keep her out cold, we should be safe, right?"

Donnie steadies her as she weaves, his hand covering the small of her back. "Even then, it's a bad plan," he says, and stands up. His legs sting, and putting any weight on his feet makes the soles feel like they're on fire, but he's had worse. "Too many variables. Until we know what her game plan is, it's better to stay here." The thought of taking Karai back to the lair, with her face slack and full of gravel — the vicious part of him wants to know how _that_ happened, and hopes Raph feels like sharing later — where Splinter will inevitably take one look at his daughter and close himself in his room, fills Donnie with the kind of dread he usually reserves for starvation, or the threat of world annihilation. He'll deal with the cold until they come up with a plan

April makes an angry growl in her throat, but doesn't argue any further. "_Too many variables_ is textbook Karai," she mutters, and stalks into her bedroom, favoring her bad leg. Donnie watches her throw open her closet and start to pull out armful after armful of blankets.

Casey follows his gaze, still smirking. "Sorry I interrupted," he says, his mouth working like he's trying not to laugh.

Donnie sighs, and just barely keeps himself from rolling his eyes. "You weren't —"

Casey throws up his hands, shakes his head, and walks away, murmuring something to himself as he heads into April's room and scoops up a load of blankets. Donnie tucks the tooth into his belt, and follows Casey and April back into the living room.

They tack blankets over the windows to hold out the worst of the cold. April cranks the heat up to ninety and makes coffee, dumping liberal amounts of milk and sugar in every mug except hers and Donnie's, and sharing them out with the others, who are grouped around Karai's still-unmoving form.

Raph, as expected, has his foot on her throat. No one speaks. Donnie shifts from foot to foot, his mouth in a tight line, but he refuses to sit when April tries to tug him to the couch with her. Casey tosses her another knowing look that she pretends not to have seen. At least he's not humming love songs.

They all jump when something taps on her bedroom window. The taps become a drumroll, heavy-metal style, and April sighs and pushes off the couch. "It's just Mikey," she says as she walks into her bedroom. She doesn't need to speak, but she has an itch on her skin from so much silence, and she wants to fill it.

Mikey's on her as soon as she gets the window half-open, pouring himself onto her bed and winding careful arms around her. "Are you okay? You smell funny." He sniffs her hair and lets her go. "You smell like…ugh, like that hamburger I forgot under my bed last summer."

"Oh, good," April replies, untangling herself from Mikey's spider-arms. "Thanks for that mental image, Mikey." She looks over his shoulder to Leo as he swings into her bedroom. "Leo?"

"Perimeter's clear," he says, terse and clipped, and she looks away as the iron wall of Leo's self-control bumps against her mind. As if things weren't awful enough, now there's Karai to deal with, and her unerring aim for the chinks in Leo's armor. Seven years wasn't long enough without it. "Everyone all right here?"

"Bruised and scraped, but nothing Raph and I couldn't handle." She nods back toward the living room. "The glass is all cleaned up, and there's coffee in the kitchen."

Mikey bounds out of the bedroom, calling "Awesome! Thanks!" over his shoulder as he moves. April hears him yelp as he catches sight of Casey and Donnie, then turns her attention to Leo.

"Leo, are you —" She doesn't know how to go on. When he's in moods like this, even asking Leo how he's feeling is likely to be taken as doubt in his abilities. Better to present loyalty, and swallow down her questions.

Leo turns a blank look on her. "I'm fine," he says, still brusque. April inwardly winces when his control goes shaky and the sharp blade of his fury slices toward her. He has himself locked down again almost instantly, but a cold pit opens up in April's stomach.

_It's already such a mess_, she thinks, watching Leo walk into the living room, his posture precise and hard as a suit of armor. _Monsters, Karai, the Foot — what next? What new shit do we have to worry about?_

Donnie looks toward the bedroom. When he sees her, he offers her a tiny smile, his eyes gentle, and holds out his hand. Love so fierce it nearly strangles her rises in her chest, and she makes her careful way into the living room, sliding her fingers around his thumb and not letting go. The surprised, shy look he gives her is the warmest thing that entire night.

His mind. It is too large. Crevices and secret places and just when the Boar thinks it has found the last, another path forks off into the dark, and Donatello has another safe haven.

It could devour the others' minds in a few hours. Even their cursed _leader_ would offer little challenge in the end. A few pricks of loss - the empty, broken face of the rat-father, perhaps - and Leonardo would crumble, screaming.

Not Donatello. No, no. Show him fear and he will take it as a challenge. Drive him mad and he will run down the corridors of his mind, tearing answers out of the horrors shown to him. He will try to piece together the _why _and _how_ from scraps of nightmares, and with a mind that large, he might actually do it.

The Boar trembles in its heavy skin. Five centuries have passed since any opponent offered more than a preemptory challenge. Twelve and more have gone by since the Boar felt _endangered_.

The Other's hand is heavy upon this one. This freak, this green-skinned whelp who likes to play at being a man - _this_ is who the Other has chosen. Laughable. He will die like all the rest, in the stink and welter of his own blood, and the Boar will gnaw his bones as the light goes out of his face.

But if Donatello is the one the Other has chosen, then the mark of the Other is in his flesh and even Donatello's marrow would be old and sour in the Boar's mouth. It would break its teeth in him, like his bones are rock and his flesh is the bitter ocean.

The Boar's stomach growls. So it can only devour three of the brothers. No matter; it will just make Donatello watch


	6. Walking Wounded: Part Four

Leo doesn't have to be an empath to feel the waves of worry pouring at him from his family. Their concern is warm, sweet as honey, and totally unnecessary. Other than that momentary slip, when he saw the dark shape at Raph's feet, he's under control. He's fine.

April has the good sense not to question him, or to do anything other than follow a few steps behind him, ending up at Donnie's side. Leo doesn't miss the way she wraps her fingers around Donnie's thumb, or the look Donnie gives her when she doesn't let go. He firmly sets his feelings about _that_ aside, and turns his attention to what matters. The still form lying in the center of the room.

Seven years have gone by since the last time he saw Karai, her beauty cold and stricken as she stood at the Shredder's side. Her chosen father's side. She hadn't changed expression once, not even when the Shredder made him kneel, and then drew fine lines along his neck and shoulders with blades so thin they didn't even hurt as they cut into him.

Leo still has those scars, an almost invisible filigree of lines that only show up in the right light. Sometimes, he traces them, how they lead from his fingers to his throat, circling around to the back of his skill. They're a road map, always leading him back to Karai, and the sick longing he still feels for her, even now.

"Leo?" Of course it would be Mikey who chooses to break the silence and shift closer, one hand raised as if he wants to reach out to Leo. Sweet, dizzy Mikey, who just wants everyone to be happy. Leo steps out of his reach and doesn't respond. No one speaks as Leo kneels.

Karai is older now, her hair a loose inky tumble on the floor, bits of broken glass and gravel mixed in the strands. Oh, she's still beautiful. Nothing can take that away from her, but now Leo truly sees her, and her beauty is stricken, cold, and blighted. Shadows move under her skin, and though that may only be a trick of the light, Leo wouldn't put it past her body to finally start manifesting the rot in her soul. Karai is beautiful, Karai is dangerous, Karai is a smile and a promise and evil, straight down to her bones.

She's still as death, lying on April's floor, and Leo wants to touch her to make sure she's still breathing. He keeps his hands on his thighs, trapped into fists, and draws in a deep breath.

Seven years. Not so long, really. Long enough to remember the frustration with Raph that sent him up to the rooftops, to practice his forms in peace before he had to start patrol. He'd prayed for guidance and a clear head, and instead, he'd gotten Karai.

* * *

_Leo hears the slight rustle of silk, but finishes his text to his brothers before he turns (AT THE BYERLY BUILDING, COME READY TO WORK). The wind is soft tonight, and he catches the faint scent of lilies as it passes him. _

_If she's wearing scent, she wants him to know she's here. She's not going to attack him outright. Which, on one hand, is a relief, but on the other presents the question of what, exactly, she wants. _

_"Didn't expect to see you here tonight," he says lightly, tucking his phone away in his belt. _

_Karai laughs, and the sound lets him place her: about fifteen feet behind him, crouched on top of the maintenance shed. He plucks a shuriken from his belt and holds it concealed between his fingers. If she moves unexpectedly, he'll aim for her neck, and when she dodges the shuriken, he'll come at her with both katana. _

_"_You_ haven't come here in a while," she says. "Not since —" _

_"The sword," Leo interrupts. He knows the purr in her voice, and hates how his body warms to it. She's not his sister, not biologically, not emotionally, but she's Sensei's daughter, no matter how hard she tries to deny it. _

_Longing after his adoptive father's daughter, whose soul is tar-black, who lies like a fish lays eggs, makes him even more damned than Donnie. It's only the knowledge that Karai would happily — and slowly — separate him from his shell that keeps him from reaching for her now. _

_"The sword," Karai agrees. Leo hears a quick _hup!_ of an inhale, then the sigh of air that means Karai is leaping down to the ground. "No brothers tonight? Is leading such a hopeless group of morons finally getting to you?" _

_As much as he knows she's just trying to get a rise out of him, Leo's loyalty rears up, snarling. _

_"Don't insult my family," he snaps flatly. "You don't even know what _family_ means." _

_"This old argument again, Leo? Can we just skip straight to the yelled accusations and promises to kill each other?" She takes a step toward him. _

Raph, Donnie, Mikey, you better be on your way here._ "Only if that means we start fighting sooner." Leo unsheathes one katana, but what Karai says next freezes him. _

_"I'm not armed. Well, I've got a tanto in my boot, but I wouldn't be a well-dressed kunoichi without it, would I?" _

_Karai, unarmed? _

She's poison_, Leo thinks even as he turns around. Karai is a rusted wire in his veins. She destroys everything she puts her hands to, out of boredom or spite, and he's no different. _

_Sometimes, Leo thinks he'd be happy chasing her down for the rest of his life. At least she's supposed to oppose his will. They're terrible for each other, but that doesn't stop his heart from making the familiar catch and stutter when he sees Karai. It's the better part of a year since they stood face-to-face. The only part of him burning hotter than the part that wants to run her through the heart is the part that wants to touch her, right on the corner of her jaw. _

_"Like what you see?" she asks, spreading her arms wide and spinning in a slow circle. She isn't even wearing armor, just a black silk tunic and trousers. Her skin glows, and she smells so sweet, lilies in a still pond. _

_It's a trick. Karai is only vulnerable when it serves her ends, and by extension, Shredder's. Leo gives himself a shake and takes a step back, tightening his grip on his katana. _

_"What do you want, Karai?" He keeps his voice steady. _Guys, get here soon_, he thinks, sending his thoughts toward the lair, imagining his brothers leaping through the air toward him. _If it's a trap, I'm running out of time.

_Karai gives him a puzzled look. "Just to talk," she says. "I was out on a run, and I saw you practicing. It's been a while." _

_"Not long enough," he says, and means it. Well, part of him does. _

_There's a flicker of a new expression on her face, and then she steps toward him, arms held loose at her sides. "You missed me," she murmurs. "I can see it. You're bored, Leo." She smiles, dark as chocolate and just as bitter, under the sweet. "I can fix that." She seems so sincere. "Just for a few minutes. Let's just…talk." She traces the line of his bicep, smiling her dark smile up at him. "Or we can _not_ talk," she offers, and then she's on him, all hands and a hot, brutal mouth. _

_He falls for it, the way he always does. Her need pulls his out of the dark, and even though he doesn't let go of his katana, he kisses her back, listening for his brothers even as Karai gasps and pulls away. _

_A heavy metal boots slam into the back of his thighs. Karai backs into the shadows with a frozen face. _

_Fishface beats him until he can't stand or speak, and then collars him. He makes a show of offering the chain to Karai, who doesn't respond. So it's Fishface who drags Leo, stumbling, through the back alleys, and then throws him in front of the Shredder. Karai takes her place at Shredder's left hand, and watches. _

_Rahzar joins in the second time, raking his claws on the soles of Leo's feet, knocking him to the ground whenever he tries to stagger up. Fishface weaves and dances around him, taking swipes at the bridge of Leo's shell and laughing, always laughing. _

_They don't stop until the Shredder tells them to, and by then every breath rattles in Leo's chest and he can't see. none of that stops the Shredder from having his fun, with blades so thin they don't hurt as he twists them in Leo's skin. _

_It goes on for years, time stretching out like hot rubber, and when the pain hits, Leo doesn't have anywhere to hide. He left himself wide open, none of his flanks protected; he almost believes he deserves it. So he goes still and quiet, slumped against the floor as the Shredder's flechettes seek out some new untouched corner of his skin._

_What if they have his brothers?_

_Leo struggles then, straining against the collar, because they can't have Mikey or Donnie or Raph, he won't let them, and he'll kill them all if they've touched his brothers. It doesn't matter that the bones in his chest no longer line up the right way, and his fingers are numb and cold. He'll use his teeth if he has to. _

_At some point, he must have said some of what he was thinking, spitting out the words between mouthfuls of blood, because the Shredder laughs and shoves him onto his shell. _

_"Will you?" says the Shredder. "I think not." _

_Karai stays silent. _

_Leo hears the Shredder call for Stockman. The scientist comes, humming, and a needle pricks Leo's neck. His vision clears long enough to see Karai's face. Still no expression. Nothing. _

_As he tumbles down into the slippery darkness at the end of Stockman's needle, Leo promises himself that he will kill Karai. His katana, her neck. It's worth living for, the thought of her blood on his blade. _

_He wakes up the next day, with shouts and fire in the distance. So many people are screaming, so many screams, and he hears a roar that burrows into his head and pushes out every other thought. There's only the roar, and the screams. The roar is eating him alive. _

_His brother's voice is what saves him. His brother is there, calling his name with a voice made ragged by shouting."Leo, Leo! Come on, man, wake up!" _

Raph?

_He forces his eyes open. Raph's face swims into his sight, spattered with blood and utterly terrified. April is stony and silent at his side, her scarf and hood hiding everything but her eyes. Over her shoulder, Casey blocks the doorway, his back to them. _

_"He's awake! We gotta go!" Raph winds his arm through Leo's and lets April ease Leo up. It hurts, sweet Jesus it hurts, he's full of too many broken bones to count. Is his shell cracked? He nearly begs them to leave him when he sees Raph's face again. His brother's terror is melting away to vicious fury, and there's no telling what will happen if someone doesn't calm him down. _

_"You came," Leo slurs, trying what he's feeling into the too-small syllables. Raph came for him. His jaw feels disconnected from the rest of his face, and he has to repeat himself before Raph understands him. _

_"Of course we did," Raph snaps. "Now shut up, we have to get out of here." _

_"Guys, we gotta hurry!" Casey bellows, waving them on as they make their slow way to the door. "Donnie and Mikey can't hold 'em off much longer!" _

_The roar blasts toward them, and everyone but April flinches. "Here," she says, sliding her hand over Leo and Raph's heads. Leo doesn't know what she's doing, but the roar fades to a thick murmur, like she's wrapped his head in a warm blanket. He can think, after a fashion, and he says the first thing that comes to mind. _

_"'M gonna killer," he says, and slips under again, away from the smell of fire and blood. _

_Three days later, he wakes up in the lair, his brothers clustered around him and Splinter holding his hand. _

_April tells him about the fire. Some side effect of a massive battle in Shredder's fortress. An oil tank spilled, or maybe one of Stockman's experiments went wrong. No one's sure how it started, but it was as much the fire as the tiny bead of Leo's mind that led them to him. Raph, Casey, and April followed the filament of his pain, all the way to the basement of the fortress, dodging panicked Foot ninja who seemed more interested in attacking each other. Donnie and Mikey kept the way clear, and Leo can see the echoes of the fire in their gazes. How many Foot did they have to — ?_

_As many as they needed to, he knows. He tries to feel revulsion for the senseless death, for this blood feud forced down their throats, but nothing comes except pathetic gratitude that his family came for him. He squeezes Splinter's hand, gritting his teeth when his bandaged fingers twinge. _

_"We don't know what happened," April says, rubbing her forehead. "They were killing each other. It was —" Casey touches her shoulder. April gives him a grateful look and sighs before going on. "The Shredder's dead." _

_Leo manages to raise his eyebrows at that. _

_"We saw his body." Everyone's eyes flick to Raph. "Still had his helmet on, but his mask was off. He was all torn up." He makes a sharp gesture with one hand, his face hard. "He's dead. Believe me." _

_Rahzar and Fishface are still out there, but the Foot is gone. Whoever didn't burn, ran, and won't be coming back. _

_Karai has vanished. The fire burned away her scent, lilies turned to ash. _

_It should make him happy, shouldn't it? She's gone, lost to the wind, blown away to haunt someone else. Maybe he can forget about her, and this last, monstrous betrayal can be the lesson he's needed to learn since day one. _

_Leo starts to shake. His family came for him, he's safe, he's warm, Donnie will fix him and Raph and Mikey will guard him. He's fine. He will be fine. _

_Will he be free? _

_When his breaths come as gasps and his teeth chatter, he hears Donnie hiss April's name. Then two small, warm hands cradle his cheeks and the bright, seawater-and-sun texture of April's mind fills him. She carries memories to him, sweet ones, like the first time they saw the farm, the sunrise over the city, Mikey and Raph laughing as they smuggle fresh bread into the kitchen. Karai's hands have stayed far away from these moments, and he can hide in them until his body heals. He shuts his eyes, willing himself back to sleep, and his family lets him. _

_Leo dreams of Karai. More accurately, he dreams of her dead, her body under some forgotten bridge, or next to a dumpster, or on the edge of a river. He wakes from these dreams, already crying, and prays that she stays away. _

* * *

_Why now, Karai? _he thinks, staring down at her face. _I was almost free of you. Another year and I wouldn't even remember what you smell like. _

Then fury replaces his damned yearning. Karai is the reason why Donnie's face is pinched and drawn, why there are new gouges in his plastron and bandages covering him from feet to thighs. She's why Casey is leaning into Raph, his exhaustion harder to hide with every second that passes. And Leo knows, without a shred of doubt, that Karai is the reason why April fell, even if Rahzar was the one who sent her over the edge of the roof.

She has new weapons now, along with the old, and she's using them against his family. Leo should stab her now, bury both katana in her empty, soulless body, and let her rot. He should end it, and be free of her once and for all.

But they need answers, and so she needs to live.

_For now_, he decides. Leo shuts the memories away, and brushes gravel from Karai's face. No blood, though her cheekbone and nose are almost certainly broken. That's a puzzlement; he knows how hard Raph hits, and Karai should be covered in blood, as red as the paint she wore, as red as her mouth. He should be able to fill his hands with it, the first payment against everything she owes him.

His family is watching him, waiting for their cue. Leo breathes in slowly. He banishes his fury along with his longing, and waits until his mind is clear as a mountain stream. None too gently, he rolls Karai to her back.

"Time to wake up, Karai," he says, his gaze never leaving her bloodless face. At the sound of his voice, her eyes flutter open.

"Leo," she breathes, and smiles.

The urge to strike her lances through him, bitter and rusted. Leo can't breathe for a moment. Even her smile is too sweet to be believed, but he finds himself wanting to. Same as always.

* * *

If keeping Casey standing wasn't at the top of his priority list, Raph would have snapped Karai's neck. He sees the way Leo stiffens as she says his name, and oh, fuck, it's right back to the same old shit. Leo wanting to believe, Karai giving him just enough hope, and then laughing when Leo hangs himself with it.

Casey shifts against his side, reading the tension in his muscles, and nudges him with a hip. Raph spares him a glance, and Casey gives a bare twitch of his head. _Calm down, dude_, is the clear message. _Let Leo handle this._

It's the same argument they've had for years. Casey's always been pro-Leo figuring his own shit out, and normally Raph is more than happy to let it happen. Karai would show up, fuck them over somehow, then Leo would go watch the koi pond Donnie built in a tunnel near the lab and rebuild himself in silence. If Leo needed to talk to someone, there was always Sensei, who could at least relate to some of Leo's pain. They both wanted to save Karai.

But Sensei knew when to stop trying, and to leave the choice to Karai. It nearly killed him to do it, and he's never been quite whole since, but he's rebuilt. He's fortified his defenses. Not like Leo, who still thinks he can hold out a hand to Karai and not get it bitten off.

So this time, Casey's wrong. This time, Karai needs to get gone, and stay that way. It only takes a glance around the circle for Raph to be sure of it. Casey will never admit how badly fucked-up he got during that fight, not until he collapses from exhaustion, and the only things keeping Donnie standing are April pressed up against his arm and the glacial, flickering anger in his gaze, though the rest of his face is a careful blank. Mikey doesn't even seem to be breathing. Everyone is waiting for what Leo will do next, and as the seconds stretch out, it looks less and less like Leo will be able to do anything.

Time to move.

Raph hasn't decided what he's going to do when Leo plucks something out of the wraps at his wrist, then lays a gentle hand on Karai's neck. April gasps, her hand fluttering up toward her throat, but no one else reacts. Leo has a thin little razor held to Karai's neck, right up against her throat, and his hand isn't shaking at all.

"What have you done?" he asks. His voice is a blade, cold and and unbreakable. Karai's eyes go wide for a fraction of a second, the smile melting off her face.

Leo repeats himself in the same dead-calm voice. He hasn't blinked.

Raph tries not to shiver, and fails.

Karai licks her lips and attempts another smile. It comes out crooked, and Raph realizes how badly Leo has knocked her off-balance with that one sentence. There's always been a respite for her, when he begged her to listen and kept his weapons sheathed until she attacked him.

_Stupid of her to rely on that_, Raph thinks. _You've been gone a long time, Karai. We've changed. _None of them, it seems, more than Leo, who can hold Karai's life in his hand without flinching.

"It's not personal," Karai says finally. "Just orders. Making sure the way is open." She clears her throat and winces. Her gaze moves away from Leo, traveling around the circle. She sneers when she sees Donnie, her lip twitching, and barely spares Mikey a glance. "So the gang's all here," she says. "Didn't want to see me on your own, Leo? Didn't trust yourself?"

Even flat on her back, Karai manages to put enough of a purr on the words to send a hot flush of rage through Raph's head. He's heard this too many times, and he's seen how Leo reacts to it. How his brother's whole body will curve toward her, like Leo isn't in control of his muscles anymore. Moth to a flame and all that bullshit. It sets Raph's teeth on edge, and brings the taste of bile into his throat.

_Why can't he just be over it?_ _Why can't it just be _done?

Leo doesn't move. He holds steady, his eyes locked on Karai's face, and eventually her new smile disappears, chasing after the last one.

"I'm going to spell this out for you, very plainly," says Leo. The dim streetlight catches a long run of scars on his arms. "I'm going to ask you questions. You're going to answer them. The second you start to tease, or play games, I let Raph get the answers out of you. Do you understand?"

Well. That's certainly a plan to put a smile on Raph's face. He feels like Leo just doused him with ice-water, leaving him more awake than he can remember, and he loves it. _Craves_ it, if he has to tell the truth. Raph likes to know his place, know his purpose, and if that's as Leo's threat, then he's fine with that. He'll take any chance he can get to take something out of her, for all the fault lines she and and the Shredder left in his family.

So he smiles when Karai's gazes flicks to him, and knows how bright his eyes must be. _That's right, sweetheart_, he thinks, his throat full of nasty, shadowy laughter. _You're not gonna get out of this the way you usually do. _

He wishes he'd hit her a little harder on the roof, but the way Karai looks away, her mouth tightening, makes up for it. She refuses to reply, staring back at Leo with a good try at defiance.

Leo presses the blade to Karai's throat, and his face breaks open into a slow, thin smile. "Do you understand, Karai?" he asks. He's almost gentle about it. Anyone not fluent in the tiny flukes and catches in Leo's voice would be fooled, but Raph shifts unconsciously, his body responding to almost fifteen years of conditioning. If Karai doesn't surrender, then Leo's going to let him loose.

He's ready. So _fucking_ ready.

Karai holds Leo's gaze an instant longer than Raph expects her to, then the fight goes out of her completely. She doesn't relax so much as slump against the floor, arms and legs limp and her head lolling back.

"You want to know what I've done?" she asks, and there's something in the thin, bleached tones of her voice that makes Raph shiver. Karai sounds nothing like herself. Even stripped down to her bare essentials, she's still vicious, still sharp, still witty. Now, she's hollowed-out, full of echoes.

"I made a wish," she says, "and got what I wanted." Her eyes move back to Leo's, and Raph feels a jolt at the mute appeal in them, so bold even he can read it. "Do you remember the story about the White Boar and the Black Bull, Leo?"

* * *

_The White Boar finds her on the roof. It comes to her as a man, a beautiful man, with a voice like the hum of electricity and hands that move like water. Karai doesn't know what the man is, not yet, and her heart is still her own. And now, it beats against her ribs, the rhythm of her guilt and her remorse. The one time she goes to Leo for herself alone, and it turns to ash in her hands. _

_She should have realized the Shredder knew where she was going. _

_Karai cradles her head between her hands, trying to shut out the sight of Leo on his knees, Leo collared. Leo's screams are in her head. _

Leo, Leo, I'm sorry_, she screams back. _I didn't know they were following me. I meant it this time. I just wanted to see you. I'm sorry. I wish I could fix this. I wish I could save you.

_But how?_

_"What do you want, Karai?" says the man, his fingers gentle on the nape of her neck. _

_She moans and pulls away, curling around herself. What does she want? _

_"Oh, my lovely Karai. Tell me," says the man, taking another step closer. "Tell me, Karai, what do you _want_?" _

_She wants to go back to Japan, she wants to wear something other than black. She wants control, she wants to smash this stupid city under her fists. She wants to breathe real air again, she wants to sleep through the night. She wants a friend. She wants someone to touch her without steel or cloth between them. She wants to take it all back, this whole bloody night. She wants Leo whole. She wants the Shredder dead. She wants — _

_"My mother," she says, because the first answer is always the truest, and this is the oldest want. She wants a woman she can barely imagine. She wants a dream. _

_But her mother is dead. One of her fathers killed her, left her to burn, and Karai has nothing of her. She lost the picture of Tang Shen years ago. No, she didn't. It was taken from her, by the Shredder, after another failure. _Sentiment is weakness_, he told her, as he burned the only proof Karai had that she had been born rather than made. That she came from someone who might have loved her. _

_"Your mother," says the man. "Oh, Karai, I know. That I cannot give you. Forgive me." He sounds sincere, his voice a warm shiver of sympathy in the humid air. "But I can give you satisfaction," he says a moment later, and the peculiar twist he puts on the last word makes her look up. _

* * *

Oh, Leo knows the story. He's the one who told it to her, after all.

"Wish-granters, blessing-givers," he says, the tale coming back to him in a heartbeat. "Good and evil. The White Boar gives you want you want, and then it takes your heart. The Black Bull —"

"— demands your service, and then it gives you your greatest happiness," Karai finishes.

Leo nods, keeping his hand steady at her throat. "It's just a story," he adds in a murmur. "No one believes it."

"I do," says Karai, without a trace of a smile. Somewhere off to the side, Donnie scoffs, but that's the only sound in the room. "The White Boar came to me." She licks her lips. "I made a wish, and…"

"Leo," says Raph, in a tight, furious whisper. "She's messing with your head. You said _no games_. She's trying to buy time to get out of this, come on!"

"I'm going to have to agree with Raph," Donnie grits out.

"Seriously, dude," says Mikey, voice hard. "Mythology? _Lame_."

April and Casey stay silent. Wise choice on their parts, Leo muses; they know the minefield Karai sowed between the brothers, and how likely they are to get a limb blown off if they put a foot wrong. Leo takes another deep breath and refocuses.

"Let's say I humor you," he tells Karai. Raph's angry growl sends a bolt of frustration up his spine. He doesn't have time to explain to Raph that he's fine, so he settles for a hard look in Raph's direction and holds it until his brother subsides, lip curling. "Your explanation for showing up after seven years to do this —" he sweeps his free hand around the room, at his family, still holding Karai's gaze, still with the blade at her throat, "— is that some magical, _mythical_ beast came and granted your wish, and now you're…?" He lets the question trail off. "You know what? No. I'm not going to humor you. Because this is ridiculous, Karai, even for you."

"The White Boar," Karai spits out. "It found me, the night Shredder died. I was up on the roof, and it asked me what I wanted. I told it — I told it I wanted the Shredder _dead_, Leo. I wanted him _gone. _Because of what he did to you."

Of all the lies Karai has told him, this is the biggest. The most ambitious. She's asking him to believe she _cared_ about him, and Leo's known almost from the beginning that she doesn't. That she _can't. _Karai is poison, Karai is being stabbed in an artery, Karai is scorched earth and Karai is a lie. A beautiful, dreamy lie, and she has no power over him anymore.

He's going to kill her.

"Because of what he did to me?" Leo gasps around the fury filling his chest. "You set me up for that, Karai, and I walked right into it. Just the way you wanted."

"No," she says, grabbing his wrist. Her eyes are wide, sincere, desperate. "That wasn't — please, Leo, listen to me. I fucked up, I know I did. It killed the Shredder but it took my heart. The stories are true! Look, feel!" She presses her neck into the blade, and Leo moves it a spare millimeter on reflex before she can cut herself. "I can't bleed. I'm — I don't even have the warhounds anymore, Leo. Your brother killed them all. I'm unarmed. Please. Trust me_._"

_"I'm not armed," she said, before she sold him out with a kiss. _

Leo slaps her.

The sound is flat, emphatic, and it echoes through April's living room, even though he didn't hit her as hard as he could have. _As hard as I should have_, he thinks_, _in the instant before he pulls his arm back to hit her again. Karai doesn't make a noise, just takes the blow, and that spikes through Leo, right in the gut. He's going to _kill_ her.

It's Splinter's face, Splinter's voice, that stops him. Karai never had a chance to learn a better way, but he did. He has a loving father. He has a _family_. He can't protect them if he lets his hate choke him. Leo can still feel the blades in his arms, twisting, sinking deeper, but honor dies a harder death than the need for vengeance. A long time ago, he swore to make any sacrifice needed. Will he break this promise now, and forget about his family for the chance to take revenge? No. He is Splinter's son. His family needs him.

He needs _them_, more than he needs _this. _Someday, he'll keep his promise to Karai, but tonight, he needs to bring his family home, safe and warm, and heal them.

It was a mistake to come. It was an even bigger mistake to let Karai _talk_, but at least that's one he can fix before it gets any worse.

He lets his arm drop back to his side, and pulls the blade away from Karai's throat. "I'm sorry," he says, not to Karai, but to his family. "We're not going to get anything useful out of her. Get her out of here." He stands up, sheathing the blade in his wraps, and steps away from Karai.

Karai makes a thin choking noise. "Listen to me, you idiot," she hisses, struggling to push herself upright. "It's real, I swear to God, and I'm trying to warn you — you know the story, Leo. You know what happens. It _eats_. That's what the White Boar does, it _eats." _She manages to stand, reaching out for Leo, but Mikey and Raph step in front of her and block her path. Leo watches Donnie close in on Karai from behind, his bo across her shoulders. April and Casey melt back toward the corners of the room, eyes sharp and watchful.

It's a beautiful thing to watch, his family in movement. How eager they are to protect each other, how easily they read each other's intentions. The pride in them saves Leo from any regret when he meets Karai's eyes again.

He will kill her, but not today. Before then, he needs to armor himself against her lies, and give his family time to shut the gates against what waits outside. Something's out there, and while he'd put his life on it not being some fairy tale come to life, they need to be ready. They need to heal, and that means going home.

"It _eats_," Karai says. "Please, don't send me back out there, Leo. It's a monster."

Karai begging. That's new. Leo waits to feel something, anything, but all that moves in him is contempt.

He really is free of her.

"Leo, please. You're sending me back to a _monster._" Karai shoves against the wall of Mikey and Raph's muscles as they start to drag her toward the window.

Leo gives her another thin smile. "If it's true," he says, "that'd be messed up, right?" He turns to Raph and nods. "Shut her up."

Karai gapes at him for the second it takes Raph to pull his arm back, then his fist smashes into the side of her head and she goes limp, hair falling over her face.

"Where do you want me to leave her?" Raph asks, lifting her over his shoulder.

Leo doesn't even have to think.

"The Byerly Building."

* * *

Yes, oh yes, this is good, this is precisely what the Boar wanted. The brothers have miscalculated, so very badly. How delicious it is — to let Karai tell the truth without fear of her being believed. She has cloaked herself in lies for too long, and now even Leonardo has hardened himself against her.

The loss of the warhounds hurts — it takes so long to breed new ones, to pull them out of mud and moss and dreams — but it has stripped the brothers of fully half their strength, and whittling away the rest will take only time.

Summer is still a long way away. The Boar can afford to be patient.


	7. Walking Wounded: Part Five

When Karai swims her way back to full consciousness, Raphael is staring down at her. He might think he's constructed a careful blank out of his features, but his eyes give everything away.

"Are you waiting around to finish the job?" she asks. Her voice is slurred. It's a challenge to talk around a broken cheekbone, but she'll manage. Already the pain is just a whisper, fading to a suggestion. "Going to kill me as a favor to your big brother?"

Raphael's fists tighten, but other than that, he makes no reply. Just keeps watching, eyes glittering. He wants to kill her, no mistaking that, but he's holding back.

Karai would wonder _why_, but the evening has exhausted her. Carrying the warhounds and keeping them alive long enough for them to be useful is challenge enough, but it was the confrontation with Leo that drained the last of her reserves. She _felt_ again, something besides fear or loathing, and it has eaten her empty.

She clears her throat, and allows herself a thin smile when Raphael's hands twitch toward his sais. "You're running out of time if you're going to start a fight," she grates out. "Sunrise isn't that far away." With a nod to the horizon, she sits up and rubs her neck. The sensation of Leo's hand — and his blade — lingers. It's idiotic to savor it, but Karai can't help herself. Of course the first living person to touch her in seven years would be Leo. She still remembers that last, searing kiss, just as she remembers Leo's face when the first blow landed. Not thinking about something doesn't mean that she's _forgotten_, but anything she let into her mind became the Boar's, and she wanted those moments kept safe, as painful as they are. They're hers.

And now Leo despises her. That doesn't surprise her, or hurt her; it's nothing more than she expected. The thought of him turning from her, however, does. She wasted whatever influence she had over him years ago, and now, when he's supposed to listen, he turned his back on her, his shell a wall. She could break her fists on it.

Karai is no good at thanks, or apologies. Nothing will ever change that, nothing will ever pull the thorns from her soul. She is dangerous, she is _bad_. It's all she was trained to be. But she has her honor, even if it's a poor, stunted, twisted thing, and she always pays back what she owes.

"You need to get out of the city," she tells Raphael, trying to meet his eyes. "All of you. Your brothers, your — the rat, O'Neil, even the idiot. Things are going to get bad, very soon."

"If Leo isn't listening to you," says Raphael, the words pouring out of him like like molten iron, "I'm not going to either. So shut your hole. You're wasting your time."

"Probably," she fires back, wincing as her broken cheekbone grinds against itself. "But I'm going to tell you anyways. There's a storm coming —"

Raphael laughs and holds up a hand, pushing to his feet. "Yeah, yeah, we've heard it before. Your little dog told us. _A storm is coming_." He grins down at her, his ferocity leashed — for the moment. "We've handled storms. We'll handle this one."

"Don't kid yourself," says Karai. "You _might_ give it a challenge. I mean, that awkward one —"

"_Donnie_," Raphael spits, fists clenching again.

"_Donnie_ already did." Karai stands too, and finally notices where they are. The realization almost makes her laugh. _Oh, Leo, if only you'd stolen the sword, we may not be here now._ Unfair to blame it on Leo, but she can't help that either. "You guys might hold out for a while. It won't last." She feels a tug in her chest, the hook drawing her back to the Boar, and whatever punishment awaits her. "Get out of New York. Forget this place — just go anywhere that isn't here. And do it soon, because come midsummer —"

"Oh, shut _up_," says Raphael. "God, you really think there's a chance we'll believe you, don't you?" He turns around and walks to the edge of the roof. "If you're smart, you'll go back to wherever the hell you've been hiding, and stay there. The next time I see you, I'll rip your throat out."

Karai closes her eyes as the hook in her chest twitches again. She presses her hand to her breastbone, her lips hot, like she's just been kissed. "You can try," she says, even though Raphael has already leapt away, and faded into the dark.

* * *

April is very familiar with the idea of cause and effect. A scientist has to be.

She can look at an egg, and see a sparrow; she can hear thunder and think of spring flowers. Action, reaction. _F=ma_. Magnetic attraction. The simple, inescapable fact of gravity. She knows all of this. She understands it, breathes it, lives it.

So why does it seem like she's missed out on the whole idea of _consequences?_

She stares at the inside of her closet, blinking fast. The clock by her bed says it's almost four in the morning. Less than five hours ago, she was making up her mind to give Donnie his space. Two hours ago, she was weeping all over him. And an hour ago, she was picking glass out of his feet and hoping the cuts on his legs wouldn't need stitches, because her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the bandages.

This isn't the time to yell at herself. She needs to grab the essentials and head for the lair. There's no time for her to stare at two identical pairs of jeans and wonder, _what if I had said something on New Year's Eve?_

She'd had a plan. A special night, tucked away in her dark, quiet apartment, something home-cooked and _not_ pizza for dinner, slouchy, fuzzed-out blues playing in the background — and then a kiss, and another, each one a cause and an effect.

The consequence? She'd be in love with Donnie, out in the open, and free. She could have been taking care of him, working on the bittersweet business of making up the last ten years to him.

What if?

What if, indeed.

What if she'd still fallen, and Donnie's guilt, always so eager and so hungry, had been compounded? If he had her, and she fell, how much worse off would he have been?

_It's nice you're finally thinking of him_, snaps an acid-coated voice in the back of her head. _But your timing's shitty. Always worried about how you affect him_.

But that's the key: she's never thought _enough_ about how much she affects him. How long had she avoided the truth, because it meant such a radical shift in the status quo? Instead of being his partner, giving him what he asked for — and Donnie never asked for much, just time and a little undivided attention — instead of giving him what he _deserved_ — she let him lavish her with the best of himself. Because she was scared. Because she was selfish.

The consequence? A month of silence. Of Donnie thinking he couldn't come to her empty-handed, because he never had before. He'd made the choice to stay away, but really, how much reason had she given him to come?

"I'm sorry," she says, closing her eyes. "I'm so sorry."

"Yo, April? You ready? Time to move." Casey slumps in the doorway. Without Raph at his side, he seems somehow reduced, but still fierce. April has a brief moment of envying him his certainty - he's never had any trouble with consequences, but he also never bothered with worrying about the risks. Maybe it's a lesson she should have taken a little more to heart.

The look Casey gives her is understanding, but not sympathetic. _Finally_, says his weary face, framed by a wry grin and steady eyes. _You get it. _

_Yeah, I do. _She thinks of a pair of steady hands: stitching together the skin of her back, carrying her away from needles and blank white tile, tracing the lines of her shoulder-blades.

In spite of everything, like the pain still clenched in her shoulder and thigh, and the stench that still gathers in the dark corners of her apartment, April's still capable of feeling desire. Of feeling _want_, and the sudden lurch makes it impossible to talk for a moment.

"Let me get changed," she says without looking at Casey, hiding her flush behind the curtain of her hair. "Most of my stuff's at the lair anyways. I just have to grab my laptop and hard drive."

"Got it." Casey shuffles away, groaning under his breath. April gives him an hour before he collapses — always the tough guy even when Raph isn't around — and hope they make it back to the lair in time. The thought makes her pack faster.

Three minutes later, she walks into the living room, tasting the minds around her. Mikey's is bright, but nervous, a tangerine glow at the back of her skull. He keeps casting glances at Leo, who waits at the window, arms folded. She can't get anything out of Leo, and she doesn't think she wants to.

Donnie is sitting on the couch, head thrown back and eyes closed. There's nothing bland about his mind now, though the taste and colors are still muted. Now there's something like cinnamon, burning at the back of her throat, banked low, waiting. He opens his eyes as she approaches, and reaches out wordlessly to take her bag. April pushes his hand away as gently as she can, smiling when he frowns.

"I'm good," she says. "Thanks."

Donnie's about to protest, but she sweeps her hand down his arm, skirting the bandages on his shoulder and holding his gaze a little longer than usual. Long enough to see a question spark in his eyes, long enough to feel the wheels start to turn in his head. Now isn't the best time, or even a good time, but April gave up the luxury of choice a long time ago. All she has left is _now_, and she needs to make the best of it.

Leo is watching them with nothing in his eyes. It must look so bad, just more of the same, but that's another consequence she'll have to deal with. And soon.

"Let's move," is all Leo says before leaping into the night.

April helps Donnie off the couch and into Mikey's arms, and takes the rear at Casey's side. It's a long way home.

* * *

Age has not dulled the precise angles of Splinter's shoulders, but his hands are gnarled where they grip his cane, and there is more grey than brown in his fur.

And then there are the changes no one can see: the aches in his muscles that never quite leave, how his left ear only catches every other word with certainty. He was not young when he was last Hamato Yoshi, and after almost three decades as Splinter, he has begun to feel the creeping edge of winter.

It does not mean he's ready to lay down and accept an ending, not by any estimation. He merely knows it is coming, just as the first leaf turning from green to gold means that the heavy snows approach. Preparing for the inevitable is not giving up. It is prudent planning.

His children still need him, and that alone is reason enough to keep his back straight against the pain. So he waits at the turnstiles, listening for their footsteps.

Michelangelo's call had been scattered as usual, though the source of the confusion is not Splinter's youngest son's propensity toward distraction, but the product of the night's events. Green spectral dogs, a smell like rotted meat. Donatello hinted at a voice, Michelangelo said, and something like a dream. A terrible dream, stones and blood and a cage, everything touched by a dead winter wind.

Parts of an old, old story, one of which Splinter only knows a small fraction. The Boar and Bull, locked in eternal struggle. And now they are here, in a city he has long learned to think of as his own, even if he can never walk its streets. New York is home to dead gods now, but only a fool would believe that dead gods lose any of their power.

Splinter is no fool. He knows how sharp the teeth of dead gods become, while they wait for worship or for the heart-hungry to pray them back to restless almost-life.

Sharp teeth, indeed. Donatello is hurt. Casey Jones is hurt.

_We're comin' home. Raph's got a stop to make…_Michelangelo had paused there, and in his reluctance to elaborate, Splinter heard the truth.

As if these factors were not enough, as if his children did not have enough to haunt them, Karai has returned. The lost daughter rose from whatever darkness she allowed to cloak her, and moved against Splinter's family once again.

He aches for Karai — no, he aches for Miwa, poor thwarted flower, whose bloom withered before it had a chance to open to the sun. Tang Shen was not the only one who died in the fire. Miwa burned as well, and what was left was a soul and body of clay, ready to be formed by Oroku Saki's malice.

Neither Splinter nor Hamato Yoshi could save Karai, though that did not mean Splinter did not _try_. He broke his heart on the rocks of her own for years, before he retreated, feeling like his daughter once more had died. So he left the choice to Karai, and prepared a space for her in his family, unasked-for, in case she ever decided to come home.

And then she betrayed Leonardo, the most faith-bound of all his sons, right into the hands of the Shredder. She sowed seeds in Leonardo that night, in the scars the Shredder left behind, and now she has returned to see what dark and too-ripe fruit those seeds have borne, watered by Leonardo's blood, fed by his rage.

_Must I always make this choice? _Splinter thinks, his hand tightening on his cane. _Always forced to choose between one who used to be my daughter, and those who are my sons now? They have been my sons so much longer than she was ever my daughter, and she seeks only to destroy them. I can never choose her, only hope that she will see the truth, and come home. _

The moment Splinter thinks the word _home_, he senses the hardy weave of his children's minds approaching, an invisible light in the tunnels. One strand is distant, but fast-approaching: Raphael, whose dark errand is over, and makes his way home through a long and tangled route to hide his passage.

They are inaudible until they reach the outer ring of light, and that pleases Splinter. Even hurt, they are still ninja, scraps of darkness moving without noise through the tunnels.

His pleasure in their skill fades when he sees Leonardo cross into the light, followed by Michelangelo, who supports Donatello with an arm around his shell. His sons are so tall, so strong, but one glance is all it takes to see how badly they need a father, and not a leader. Donatello's bandages are stained with new blood, and it is all too clear that each step he takes pains him.

His other children are not much better. Splinter has not seen April in months, but seeing her now hurts like a wasp's sting in his hand. She is too thin, her eyes too large in her face, and she staggers under Casey Jones' weight. It is good to lay eyes on her again and see her ordeal has not dulled her fierce, bright edges. And Casey Jones is forever himself, though hurt: his steady, warm presence steadies the rest, without anyone realizing it.

They are all pale, all weary, though it is Leonardo's gaze that troubles Splinter most. It is the look of a warrior who knows that the war around him has already taken its shape, but that he cannot see what it is.

"My son," says Splinter, and holds out his hand to Leonardo.

His oldest son gives him an unspeakably weary look, and walks past him without a word. With a straight back that never bent, not even after Shredder's worst, Leo walks toward the koi pond, and Splinter cannot bear to follow and steal what little peace his son can glean from dark water and silent currents.

* * *

They all watch Leo fade into the tunnel's shadows, and it's so quiet Mikey wonders if anyone except him is breathing. Then Casey shifts, groaning, and Sensei moves, pulling him away from April and easing him down to a couch.

"Will you be able to assist Donatello on your own?" he asks Mikey. He sounds calm, but the way he doesn't look at the tunnel says everything he doesn't. _No one will bother Leonardo_, the not-looking says, and Mikey is totally okay with following that order.

Mikey salutes with his free arm and lets Donnie lean a little more against him. "Yeah, I got this. Come on, D."

Mikey's shoulders ache from hauling Donnie all the way home — because while his bro might look all lanky and stuff, he's solid muscle just like the rest of them and there's more than six and a half feet of it. Donnie weighs a _ton. _Not that Mikey's complaining — well, not that he's complaining _much_. He's just happy everyone's home and safe. So if it means his shoulders are going to totally kill him for a while, it's cool.

He bundles Donnie into the kitchen, even though the bathroom is cleaner, and there's a better first aid kit in Donnie's lab. The kitchen is closer, and also has the bonus of the stove and tea pot. Mikey doesn't usually drink the stuff, gross hot dead plant water, _no thanks, dude_, but Donnie and Leo and April and Casey are crazy about it, and even Raph won't say no. So he'll boil water and put all their mugs in the right places and maybe things won't suck quite so much.

Hard to believe things could suck _more_. Karai, weird green dogs, nightmares — and that's before Mikey thinks about the bandages all over Donnie and Casey. The bandages make his fingers all itchy, like he wants to punch something. They make him angry.

Being angry's not going to help anyone, so Mikey takes deep breaths, just like Sensei taught him (he paid attention sometimes, seriously, he did), and lets the anger slip out of him like water down a drain. Bye-bye, being pissed off.

He eases Donnie into a chair, then digs out the first aid kit. They've got them scattered throughout the lair, at least one to a room, and if the one in the kitchen doesn't get the most use, it's still got everything he needs: clean bandages, fresh gauze, antiseptic, and a needle and thread.

Donnie gives the last two items a wary look. "Uh, Mikey, you sure?" He shrinks in on himself, and Mikey tries not to roll his eyes.

"Dude, you just got eaten by ghost dogs, and you're freaked out by stitches?"

"I'm not freaked out, Mikey, but I'd really like to not be poked and prodded for five minutes." He gives Mikey a helpless look. "Just wait five minutes, please. I just want to sit."

Mikey knows Donnie's not squeamish. He's the only brother who can stand all the gooey stuff in scary movies as well as Mikey does, and if there's blood to deal with in real life, he just handles it. So if Donnie's asking for a few minutes, it's not because he's afraid of pain. There's something else, something he doesn't want anyone to see, so Mikey nods and turns around to fill the tea pot.

He can't taste feelings the way April can — but how cool would that be, _tasting_ feelings? Mikey thinks Raph's brain probably tastes like an ass sandwich — but he knows when someone needs to just chill out on their own. Whatever happened to Donnie messed him up pretty bad, and that's before Mikey counts his month-long freak-out. Not just the dogs and losing it over April, but that nightmare too. He told them about it on the way home, just a few short sentences about a battle and dead people everywhere, but Mikey knows Donnie didn't tell them everything. He got all squinty and quiet, the way he does when he's trying to lie, and Mikey would bet only he and April know the signs. So Donnie's holding back, and whatever he didn't tell them is still in his head. Still messing him up.

If Leo were here, he'd probably tell Donnie to just start talking, and Raph would yell at him until Donnie yelled back. Either way, the whole story would come out, and maybe Donnie would stop looking so chewed-up (pun most definitely intended). Mikey's not sure those are the best ways. He thinks it's better to wait Donnie out, and let him figure out what he needs to say before he says it. Donnie's got a big brain, so there's more room for nasties to hide in, and he's got more work to do to chase them all down. It's a waiting game, and even if Mikey doesn't have a ton of patience, he can drum up enough for Donnie.

He wants to worry about Leo too, but that's the fastest way to get his head bitten off right now. And Mikey really likes his head where it's at.

April pads into the kitchen just when the water starts to boil. "Casey's asleep on the couch," she says. "Out like a light. I checked his bandages — they'll need to be changed later, but for now they're good."

Mikey pulls the tea pot off the burner and sticks the tips of his fingers through the mug handles. He has to balance his own on the palm of his hand, but April rescues it when it starts to wobble. "Thanks, April. You did a good job on Donnie's bandages — not as good as me, but hey, beggars make poor choices, you know?"

"Beggars can't be choosers," Donnie corrects, his voice all spacey, still staring at the table. He looks up a moment later, eyes still dull, but as soon as he sees April, something sharpens in him and he almost smiles. Whatever's in his head just took a backseat, and Mikey has to try not to roll his eyes _again_ as he sets the mugs in place.

Donnie and April are still at the look-but-don't-touch stage and it's driving Mikey nuts. They're a done thing. Even _Casey_ knew that, and it's driving _everyone_ nuts. Well, Leo's not going _nuts_, not about this at least, he's more just…bothered. Like, _really_ bothered.

The tea's already steeping in the mugs before April looks away from Donnie, frowning a little bit. "Raph's almost home," she says, and she sounds so relieved that Mikey has to smile. At least she still has something, and that weird crap isn't blocking all her powers. It'd be telepathetic for real if it did.

April stretches, rubbing her bad shoulder. "I figure it's okay to let Casey sleep for a bit." She turns a crooked little smile on Mikey. "Unless the doctor wants to give his opinion?"

Mikey sniffs. "Nah. I'll check on him later." His stomach growls, super-loud, and all thoughts of stitches and borders and weird green dogs gets pushed out of his head. Everyone's hurting, everyone's bleeding somehow, and Mikey can only do so much to bandage those wounds. But it's not always about bandages and blood, even in his family's world. Sometimes it's about the good warmth can do.

"You guys hungry?" he asks. "I'm gonna make something. Something awesome."

April smiles again, but her gaze slides toward the door — toward the tunnel. "I'll eat later, but I'm going to go check on Leo."

_Oh, bad idea alert_, Mikey thinks, but manages not to say it out loud. Instead, he gives her the most serious look he can muster. She flushes, but holds his gaze. "You sure? You know what he's gonna say." _And it's not gonna be pretty, not after Karai got into his head again. _

April shrugs, her smile going hard and a little sad. "Yeah, I do. Might as well get it over with now. Not like tonight can get much worse, right?"

"Your funeral," Mikey says cheerfully, before he can stop himself. April just laughs, exhausted, and heads out. Donnie watches her until she disappears into the tunnel, then turns to frown at Mikey.

"What was that about?" he asks Mikey. "What's Leo going to say to her?"

Mikey sighs, and remembers the first aid kit. It's been more than five minutes. "Dude, if you can't figure it out, I'm not gonna tell you. Now hold still, time to check you out."

Donnie opens his mouth, but Mikey turns on the faucet to wash his hands, and Donnie's next words get lost in the rush of water.

_Pancakes_, Mikey decides, scrubbing his arms to the elbow. _I'm gonna make pancakes. _

Dr. Chefenstein is in the house.

* * *

Raph stumbles in just as Casey wakes up. He has no idea how long he slept, only that Sensei and April have both disappeared, and he's too exhausted for bluster. Casey waves from the couch, bleary-eyed, but unspeakably glad that Raph's back, and reaches out as soon as Raph sits down heavily on the floor next to the couch.

"Hey," they say in unison. Raph offers Casey a tired smile.

"You okay?" Casey asks. He puts a hand on Raph's shoulder and squeezes. Under his hand, Raph's skin is warm and heavy.

Raph shakes his head. "Nope. You?"

"Nope." Casey rolls onto his side, and sweeps his thumb over Raph's collarbone. It's a sign of how beat Raph is that he doesn't try to brush Casey's hand away, but leans into the touch instead. Raph doesn't just accept comfort; he fights it first, and only gives in after Casey coaxes him into it. "This is bad, ain't it?"

Raph takes his time replying. His eyes never leave Casey's face, not even when he nods. "It's bad," he agrees. "It's gonna get worse."

"Always does." Casey squeezes his shoulder again. "We'll handle it. We always do."

Raph leans forward, breathing deep, and lets his forehead rest against Casey's.

* * *

_Karai,_ Leo thinks, his eyes closed. _Stay away from my family. I've given you this chance. It's my last gift to you. If I see you again, I'll tear out whatever you've got in place of a heart, and I'll laugh while I do it. _

These thoughts don't feel like his own, but it doesn't matter. All that matters is that Karai hears them, and obeys. He's carved her out of his soul. In time, the empty space will scar over, and he'll heal. In time. All he needs now is time.

His hands clench as his muscles remember what her throat felt like under his hands. He remembers her kiss too, and her pale, silent watch over him as her father went about his work.

_Make that your fixed point_, he instructs himself. _She betrayed you, and she'll do it again and again if you let her. Give her nothing, and the next time you see her, destroy her. Protect your family. That's all that matters. _

He sinks into himself, seeking peace, seeking absolution, and finds nothing, not even fear. He's empty.

Leo hears April's steps, and his only thought is, _what took you so long? _

She's the last person he wants to see right now, but she's the only one he expected. Everyone else is treating him like a time bomb, but only April is brave enough — or foolhardy enough — to actually hit his trigger. Such typical April behavior too, always needing to be at the center of the action, where the blows rain down hardest, where the battle cries are loudest. At first, it was because she felt like she had something to prove, and now it's habit. Selfish, knotted habit, and Leo should have broken her of it a long time ago. For her sake, for Donnie's.

April takes a seat at his side, pulls off her boots and socks, and trails her toes along the surface of the water.

"I know why you're here," he says. "And before you ask, I'm fine."

"I wasn't going to ask," April replies, and kicks the water. The splash echoes too loudly off the old brick walls. Leo flinches. April gives him a sad, knowing look, then pulls her feet away from the water and hugs her knees. "We all know you're not fine, Leo. But I'm not here to make you feel better."

"Thank God for that," he snaps, his anger straining in his muscles. "Because believe me, you're the last person who could."

She rests her chin on her knees and doesn't look at him. Leo bites his tongue as his anger shoves right up against the limits of his control. April always fights back; she snarls and accuses and yells, aiming for weak spots with vicious, unerring aim. She barely needs a weapon, because her tongue is a river of acid. It's why he never sends her on patrol with Raph and Casey. The idea of the three of them shooting off half-cocked accounts for half of Leo's migraines over the past ten years. In her own way, April's worse than Raph. She never stays silent, she never submits.

_Unless she knows she's messed up_, Leo thinks, remembering how contrite April is when she realizes she's unintentionally caused real hurt. Like a punch to the gut, he _understands_, and his anger fades to a reluctant simmer.

"Now, April?" He laughs bleakly. "Seriously? Your timing is —" He can't finish; the muscles under his shell are already tightening, waiting for her justifications.

"Terrible, I know." She flicks water droplets from her feet. "Story of my life. But I want you to know — I was going to say something. I swear to God, I was. But then I fell, and he didn't come, and things just…"

"Don't try and put this off on Donnie," Leo says. "It's not his fault."

"I don't blame him." April turns her head so her cheek is resting on her knees. Her gaze is wide and dark, her pupils vague ink-dots in thin rings of blue. "I got used to things working a certain way with Donnie. I got spoiled. That's on me, Leo. What's your excuse?" she asks, her voice unexpectedly pointed. "You always haul us back before we go off the rails. Why not now? Why not Donnie?"

He gapes at her — how dare she, when she's been dragging Donnie's heart behind her for a decade, until it's little better than a pile of rags — but before his anger leaps up, a thick wave of exhaustion hits him. He slumps down, his skin tight and cold. The koi swim in sleepy circles below them, and he wishes, more than anything, to slide into the cool water and curl up on the bottom of the pond, where it's silent and dark, and nothing but gentle fins can reach him.

Why didn't he do more?

Donnie is his second, the one who can be trusted to have three alternative plans to every one of Leo's. He can be trusted to be ruthless when it counts, but his compassion is just as pure as his practicality. Donnie wants to fix everything, everyone, and when he couldn't — well, it was like Leo had lost his second, best set of eyes.

How do you fix the one who's always fixed you?

The question had seemed too daunting, and with a storm brewing on the edge of his world, Leo had faltered. He had _failed_.

"I got spoiled," he says flatly. Beside him, April sighs. After a moment, Leo reaches out and wraps a tentative arm around her shoulders. She leans into him, breathing too fast, and Leo isn't surprised when a hot trail of her tears slips down his arm, right along his scars.

"If you do this," he says, as gently as he can, "and you tell him, mean it. It has to be a done thing, April. No takebacks."

"There won't be," she whispers. "I know it's a horrible time, but there won't be. I swear to God, this is it. He's it."

Leo's seven-years-gone betrayal is fresh and bitter in his mouth. April could be lying, or she could make a mistake. She is, after all, only human, and Leo knows too well what human hearts are capable of. But she's more than human, she's _family_, and Leo will always have faith in his family.

"Okay." He hugs her to his side, grateful for her warmth. There are worse things to fill his empty soul with than faith.

* * *

The walk to his room is excruciating, but Donnie grits his teeth and takes his time. He bargains with himself: _take this next step, and you can wait to take the one after. Two in a row, and you can lean on the wall for thirty seconds. _It takes an embarrassing ten minutes to make it just to the pit, and he has to pause and wait for his legs to stop trembling.

He almost wishes he'd accepted Mikey's offered help, but that meant dealing with Mikey's fussing, and right now, all he wants is to be alone. Everything is cold, everything inside his head is wind.

"Donnie?" April's voice floats to him from the bathroom door.

_Not quite alone, _a sly voice whispers in his head. He turns slowly, trying to hide his wince, and faces her with the best smile he can muster. The sight of her pierces him: bare feet, wet, messy hair, red eyes. She's beautiful, and he's still lost, still longing. He'll never have enough of her.

"Can I help?" she asks. When he pauses, she tilts her head, hair spilling over her shoulders, and smiles. "Please."

There's nothing he can do except nod. April crosses the room silently, with a quick glance at where Casey and Raph are slumped together on the couch, and slips under Donnie's arm. He tries to keep his weight off her bad shoulder, but she tugs his arm down.

"Room or lab?"

He hesitates. His room is closer, but his lab is — _safer_. It's not that he hasn't daydreamed about April there, but his room is where he lets his mind run free. It's where he lets himself hope the most.

"Room," April decides for him, and steers them down the hall. She pauses when he winces, stroking his arm and shell, and goes slower when they start moving again. When they reach his door, she bumps it open with her hip and eases him toward his futon. Donnie can't stop a groan of relief when he can finally stretch out on his shell, his weight off his feet, and isn't immediately aware of April's hands moving over his legs and plastron.

"April?" His voice barely quavers as her fingers sweep over his knees.

"Just checking your bandages," she murmurs. "Mikey redid them?"

Donnie nods. He tugs his blanket up to his chin, and searches for her face in the dark. A faint glow from the hallway lights falls over her hair and cheek, but that's all he can see. Without that, he'd think he was imagining her, even after she bends down and kisses his forehead.

"Stay," he blurts out. He couldn't have stopped himself if he had tried; he's still so cold, but April's hands are warm, and this is where he hopes the most.

April's thumb brushes his cheek, right below the edge of his mask, and then his covers rustle as she slides beneath them. They're not quite touching, but he can smell her, and he can feel the heat rising off her shower-warm skin. It's almost enough. Almost.

It's enough when she turns on her side and lies her head in the hollow of his unbandaged shoulder, and her warmth becomes his.

* * *

"Finally." Raph sighs as he watches April help Donnie into his room. Casey grumbles sleepily at him and turns onto his back. "Looks like they're getting somewhere."

"Only took 'em ten years," Casey mutters.

Raph snickers, and leans his head back against the couch. He could haul Casey off the couch and into his room, but that means moving, and he's comfortable right where he is, with Casey filling most of his vision, knowing his family's safe and sound. The lair is almost silent, but if he listens, really listens, he can hear them breathing.

Casey's hand plays around the edge of his plastron. "Stop thinkin'," he says. "It's time to sleep."

Sleep sounds great. A few hours to block out what happened, and what's yet to come. But first —

He leans in, and snatches a kiss.

* * *

Leo kneels beside his sensei. No, not his sensei now. His father. The room is full of blue smoke, and the air is heavy with incense.

"I don't know what to do," he says. "I don't —"

His father's hand cradles the back of his head, and Leo forgets, for a moment, that he is a ninja, a warrior, a leader, and is content to be a son.

* * *

The sun rises, though no one sees it, for the sky is grey and heavy with clouds. A cold wind blows between the buildings, and in the distance, the first low roll of thunder begins.

While the family sleeps, it starts to rain.


End file.
